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Interdisciplinarity and collaboration: on the relationship between disciplinary diversity in departmental affiliations and reference lists

Author

Listed:
  • Lin Zhang

    (Wuhan University
    KU Leuven
    North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power)

  • Beibei Sun

    (North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power)

  • Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez

    (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-IPP))

  • Lixin Chen

    (North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power)

  • Ying Huang

    (Hunan University)

Abstract

This study explores the characteristics of scientific activity patterns through co-author affiliations to obtain new insights into interdisciplinary research. To classify the interdisciplinarity in research, we explored and compared two different approaches: the diversity of disciplines reflected in the listed affiliations of the authors and the diversity of the subject categories reflected in the reference list. To assess the diversity in departmental affiliations, we developed an explorative methodology that retrieves feature words from a combination of manual work and the thesaurus function in the Thomson Data Analyzer text mining tool. To assess the diversity in references, we followed the conventional approach applied in previous work. With both approaches, we relied on diversity as the measure for assessing interdisciplinarity of 157,710 articles published in PloS One (2007–2016). Based on a comparison between the results of both approaches, our study confirms that different methodologies and indicators can produce seriously inconsistent, and even contradictory results. In addition, different indicators may capture different understandings of such a multi-faceted concept as interdisciplinarity. Our results are summarized in a schematic representation of this twofold perspective as a method of indexing the different types of interdisciplinarity commonly found in research studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Lin Zhang & Beibei Sun & Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez & Lixin Chen & Ying Huang, 2018. "Interdisciplinarity and collaboration: on the relationship between disciplinary diversity in departmental affiliations and reference lists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 271-291, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:117:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-018-2853-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2853-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Wolfgang Glänzel & Koenraad Debackere, 2022. "Various aspects of interdisciplinarity in research and how to quantify and measure those," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5551-5569, September.
    3. Loet Leydesdorff & Inga Ivanova, 2021. "The measurement of “interdisciplinarity” and “synergy” in scientific and extra‐scientific collaborations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(4), pages 387-402, April.
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    7. Alfonso Ávila-Robinson & Cristian Mejia & Shintaro Sengoku, 2021. "Are bibliometric measures consistent with scientists’ perceptions? The case of interdisciplinarity in research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7477-7502, September.
    8. Jielan Ding & Zhesi Shen & Per Ahlgren & Tobias Jeppsson & David Minguillo & Johan Lyhagen, 2021. "The link between ethnic diversity and scientific impact: the mediating effect of novelty and audience diversity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7759-7810, September.
    9. Manuel Goyanes & Márton Demeter & Zicheng Cheng & Homero Gil Zúñiga, 2022. "Measuring publication diversity among the most productive scholars: how research trajectories differ in communication, psychology, and political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3661-3682, June.
    10. Hoang-Son Pham & Bram Vancraeynest & Hanne Poelmans & Sadia Vancauwenbergh & Amr Ali-Eldin, 2023. "Identifying interdisciplinary research in research projects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5521-5544, October.
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