Eck, N.J.P. van Waltman, L.R. (Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), RSM Erasmus University)
Abstract
In scientometric research, the use of co-occurrence data is very common. In many cases, a similarity measure is employed to normalize the data. However, there is no consensus among researchers on which similarity measure is most appropriate for normalization purposes. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the properties of similarity measures for co-occurrence data, focusing in particular on four well-known measures: the association strength, the cosine, the inclusion index, and the Jaccard index. We also study the behavior of these measures empirically. Our analysis reveals that there exist two fundamentally different types of similarity measures, namely set-theoretic measures and probabilistic measures. The association strength is a probabilistic measure, while the cosine, the inclusion index, and the Jaccard index are set-theoretic measures. Both our theoretical and our empirical results indicate that co-occurrence data can best be normalized using a probabilistic measure. This provides strong support for the use of the association strength in scientometric research.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. in its series Research Paper with number
ERS-2009-001-LIS Revision_Date: 2009-07-29.