教案成果交叉学科2012a framework for knowledge integration and diffusion

1、Knowledge integration anddiffusionA framework for knowledge integration and diffusionYuxian LiuTongji University Library, Shanghai, PeoplesUniversity of Antwerp (UA), IBW, Antwerp, BelgiumIsmael Rafols, and31Received 19 July 2010Revised 13 February 2011Accepted 1 March 2011Science and Technology Pol

2、icy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, and Technology Policy Assessment Center,Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, andRonald RousseauUniversity of Antwerp (UA), IBW, Antwerp, Belgium,Faculty of Industrial Sciences and Technology, KHBO (Association KU Leuven), Oo

3、stende, Belgium, and Department of Mathematics, KU Leuven, Leuven (Heverlee), BelgiumAbstractPurpose This paper aims to introduce a general framework for the analysis of knowledge integration and diffusion using bibliometric data.Design/methodology/approach The authors propose that in order to chara

4、cterise knowledge integration and diffusion of a given issue (the source, for example articles on a topic or by an organisation, etc.), one has to choose a set of elements from the source (the intermediary set, forexample references, keywords, etc.). This set can then be classified into categories (

5、cats), thus making it possible to investigate its diversity. The set can also be characterised according to the coherence of a network associated to it.Findings This framework allows a methodology to be developed to assess knowledge integration and diffusion. Such methodologies can be useful for a n

6、umber of science policy issues, including the assessment of interdisciplinarity in research and dynamics of research networks.Originality/value The main contribution of this article is to provide a simple and easy to use generalisation of an existing approach to study interdisciplinarity, bringing k

7、nowledge integration and knowledge diffusion together in one framework.Keywords Knowledge integration, Knowledge diffusion, Interdisciplinarity, Diversity, Coherence, Diversity management, Knowledge managementPaper type Conceptual paperIsmael Rafols acknowledges support from the US National Science

8、Foundation (AwardNo. 0830207, “Measuring and tracking researcowledge integration”;).The findings and observations contained in this paper are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Ronald Rousseau and YuxianJournal of Documentation Vol. 68 No

9、. 1, 2012pp. 31-44q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0022-0418DOI 10.1108/00220411211200310Liu thank Zhang Xiaolin, Executive Director of the National Science Library,Academyof Sciences, and his colleague Yang Liying for their hospitality during their visit, when work on this article began.Work of th

10、e authors is supported by NSFC Grant No. 71173154.Downloaded by Nanjing University of Science and Technology At 17:12 30 March 2017 (PT)The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available atJDOC 68,15. Application of teral framework for the study of a single article:measurement of d

11、iversity and coherence5.1 Diversity as one attribute of interdisciplinary knowledge integrationDiversity is the property of how the elements of a system are apportioned into categories (Stirling, 2007). As one aspect of knowledge integration, diversity is now determined onthe image of the cats-map.

12、There are three levels on which one may work.38(1)Variety: the number of cats involved, or (maybe better) the relative number of cats (with respect to the total number of cats) involved.(2)Classical diversity (as the opposite of evenness). This quty can be measuredusing a classical evenness measure

13、such as the Simpson index, the Shannonentropy measure, the Gini index or the coefficient of variation (Nijssen et al., 1998).As explained by Rafols and Meyer (2010) the best approach is to take the three(3)aspects of diversity i.e. variety, balance and disparity into. If adistance or dissimilarity m

14、easure exists in cats (and this is assumed in our framework) this suggests using the Rao-Stirling measure, or one of the generalisations that can be derived from Stirlings (2007) framework 2.Recall that the Rao-Stirling measure is defined as:Xabd : p:p :Diji ji;j ijHere, dij denotes the dissimilarit

15、y between cat i and cat j, and pi and pj denote the proportions of the total number of items under study in cat i and cat j, respectively. Finally, a and b are parameters that adjust the importance given to small distances (a) and weights (b). In case one lacks empirical reasons to adjust a and b, t

16、hey are often taken as being equal to 1.5.2 Coherence as another attribute of interdisciplinary knowledge integration Coherence is the property describing how the elements of a system are related to each other. Hence, coherence is a property of networks. It is independent from the concept of diversi

17、ty: diversity reflects the distribution of elements in the IM set into categories; coherence reflects how these elements are related to each other (as measured through cats). If we want to use this powerful notion we have to determine the network for example nodes and links, and possibly weights inv

18、olved in the particular integration or diffusion study. Different network measures may be used to capture coherence, such as the mean path length or the mean dissimilarity between elements (or linkage strength).The most straightforward measure of coherence is to use the same IM and cats set as in th

19、e measure of diversity, and simply compute the mean distance (or dissimilarity), i.e.:XCp d ;ij iji:jwhere pij is the proportion of links between cats i and j. Since one can compute thisproportion from conditional probabilities, namely pijexpectedpipj , an interestingiDownloaded by Nanjing Universit

20、y of Science and Technology At 17:12 30 March 2017 (PT)measure is the relative coherence, namely the ratio between the observed and the expected coherence (see Rafols et al., 2011).Notice that in case we have no information about the conditional probability, we canKnowledge integration anddiffusiona

21、ssume independence between variables. Then, pj=ipj and:Pp dij iji;jRel CP;39i;jpipjdijiwhich means the expected coherence is the diversity.Another approach is to use more fine-grained units of analysis for coherence. In Rafols and Meyer (2010), the network nodes consist of the set of references of t

22、he original article. These references are the nodes of the network, and the relation studied, determining the existence of links, is bibliographic coupling. The fact that thisintermediary set is not the same as the one needed to define the cats map generally speaking, a minor complication.is,We next

23、 give an overview of possible networks to be used in the cases mentioned above. If the intermediary set (IM) is a set of words then links can express co-use in the same sentence, in the title, in the abstract, in the same section. If IM is the set of departments in the byline of article A or of the

24、reference articles of article A, departments are linked if members of these departments collaborated in at least one article cited in article A. In the case of references, or refs-of-refs or their union, links may be bibliographic coupling links, or being published in the same journal, collaboration

25、 links, same type (e.g. according to citedness; or age, or language). In the case that IM consists ofwges, the existence of weblinks naturally determines coherence.Yet, the situation becomes much more complicated when links and nodes arevalued. This may happen when we consider a group of articles an

26、d use keywords as nodes and co-occurrence of keywords as links. Nodes as well as co-occurrence may happen several times, which leads to a network in which nodes as well as links are weighted or valued.5.3 Interdisciplinary knowledge diffusionWhen studying knowledge diffusion, one may use the same ap

27、proach used in knowledge integration, but looking into the citing articles instead of the cited references. The study of diversity can be carried out as before, whereas coherence can be explored using cross-citations between cats, co-citation relations as links among the citing articles, or also the

28、 co-authorship network of the citing articles.6. Interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion as a property of a set of related articlesEverything we have discussed so far about single articles also applies with someadaptations to groups of articles. However, changing the focus from one article to a group

29、of related articles leads to an interesting new aspect.The act of publishing subsequent research, for example written by the same research group, leads to a form of diffusion by publication. This has been pointed out in Liu and Rousseau (2010). In this context diffusion as described in previous sect

30、ions may be described as citation diffusion, i.e. diffusion by being cited. If a group publishes in different journals, or even different (sub)fields this may or may not be a token ofDownloaded by Nanjing University of Science and Technology At 17:12 30 March 2017 (PT)their average and standard devi

31、ation, and rank these articles based on the values of the diversity and coherence measures.An example of such an application may be a group of articles on the same topic, but published in different journals. A ranking may then reveal (or not) that articles published in journal J1 are generally more

32、diverse than articles published in journal J2, and more coherent in terms of the topics they encompass.This type of approach is a useful exercise in emerging fields, such as nanotechnology. For example, a study of various nanotechnology journals revealed major differences in the degree and type of i

33、nterdisciplinarity. In this case, the source was the journal, the IM set the articles in the journals, and the target set the JCR Subject Categories. As shown in Figure 4, some of the journals, such as Nanotechnology, were mainly disciplinary but rather general in their topics (low diversity, low co

34、herence). Other journals, such as Journal of Nanoparticle Research, showed a high degree of disciplinary diversity but little coherence in the topics they dealt with (high diversity, low coherence). Finally, some journals such as Lab on a Chip were diverse in disciplinary terms and were also coheren

35、t in their topics providing a convincing trace of knowledge integration at the journal level (Rafols, unpublished, using a random sample of 350 articles for each journal in the period 2001-2006; diversity was measured using the Herfindahl (or Simpson) index over cited journals; coherence using the m

36、ean bibliographic coupling among papers, see Figure 4).Knowledge integration anddiffusion417.4 More cited?The question of whether articles that show a higher degree of knowledge integration are more cited is a complex one. In the context of interdisciplinarity, the answer seems to be heavily depende

37、nt on the actual definitions used, and the field normalisation used to count citations (Zhou and Leydesdorff, 2011). Clearly the answer is certainly not aFigure 4. Diversity versus coherence plot for nanotechnology relatedjournals (2001 2006)Downloaded by Nanjing University of Science and Technology

38、 At 17:12 30 March 2017 (PT)JDOC 68,1straightforward yes (Lariviere and Gingras, 2010; Yegros-Yegros et al., 2010). The question of whether more diffused articles have more citations is less appropriate, as diffusion implies citations. Yet, here also the number of citations per cat (with at least on

39、e citation) might be a useful parameter to study. This is related to the notion of intensity as studied in Liu and Rousseau (2010).428.: reflections on the meaning of diffusion and integrationWe have proposed that interdisciplinarity, and in general knowledge integration, can be captured by the cont

40、ents of an article or set of articles, for example from a reference list. It is determined by (and hence is a property of) the authors or unit of the articles under study.As diffusion through citations is determined by citing articles, it is a measure of reach. It is largely determined by objects ou

41、tside the original set of articles (or book, etc.). Superficially, the notion of knowledge diffusion has little to do with the article itself (or articles themselves), as it is more concerned with the question of how thisarticle is received by the scientific commu. Yet, the reason or reasons why ana

42、rticle is highly diffused has to do with properties (intellectual and other) of the article itself, and hence with the intrinsic properties of the article (or articles). As mentioned above, knowledge diffusion is a measure of reach. If one is interested in a measure determined completely by outsider

43、s, self-citations must be removed. Publication diffusion is determined by the group of authors under study but is different from knowledge integration.In our view, knowledge integration and knowledge diffusion are both best described using the complementary notions of diversity and coherence. In thi

44、s context the contribution of this paper has been to propose a new general framework that may be used as a guideline within which practical studies can be performed. The specific operationalisation of diversity and coherence may differ in these empirical studies (due to their different goals, focus,

45、 sample size, etc.), but having a conceptually well-defined framework is important for the sake of clarity and in order to be able to compare cases.Notes1. Notice that this contribution is a study of the knowledge in one article or a small group of related articles. The study of the diffusion of a w

46、hole research topic is different and can be done using other units, for example how many authors publish (Bettencourt et al., 2008) or where articles of a topic are published (Kiss et al., 2010).2. For a different formulation of teralisation, see Ricotta and Szeidl (2006).ReferencesBarry, A., Born,

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