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Knowledge inheritance in disciplines: Quantifying the successive and distant reuse of references

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  • Hongyu Zhou
  • Ke Dong
  • Yikun Xia

Abstract

How the knowledge base of disciplines grows, renews, and decays informs their distinct characteristics and epistemology. Here we track the evolution of knowledge bases of 19 disciplines for over 45 years. We introduce the notation of knowledge inheritance as the overlap in the set of references between years. We discuss two modes of knowledge inheritance of disciplines—successive and distant. To quantify the status and propensity of knowledge inheritance for disciplines, we propose two indicators: one descriptively describes knowledge base evolution, and one estimates the propensity of knowledge inheritance. When observing the continuity in knowledge bases for disciplines, we show distinct patterns for STEM and SS&H disciplines: the former inherits knowledge bases more successively, yet the latter inherits significantly from distant knowledge bases. We further discover stagnation or revival in knowledge base evolution where older knowledge base ceases to decay after 10 years (e.g., Physics and Mathematics) and are increasingly reused (e.g., Philosophy). Regarding the propensity of inheriting prior knowledge bases, we observe unanimous rises in both successive and distant knowledge inheritance. We show that knowledge inheritance could reveal disciplinary characteristics regarding the trajectory of knowledge base evolution and interesting insights into the metabolism and maturity of scholarly communication.

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  • Hongyu Zhou & Ke Dong & Yikun Xia, 2023. "Knowledge inheritance in disciplines: Quantifying the successive and distant reuse of references," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(13), pages 1515-1531, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:74:y:2023:i:13:p:1515-1531
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.24833
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    1. Wei Cheng & Dejun Zheng & Xiaomin Zheng & Huanhuan Ni, 2025. "Combining referenced publication year spectroscopy and topic clustering to identify key knowledge foundations in scientometrics: an analysis of recipients of the Price Award," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(2), pages 1077-1099, February.
    2. Wei Cheng & Dejun Zheng & Shaoxiong Fu & Jingfeng Cui, 2024. "Closer in time and higher correlation: disclosing the relationship between citation similarity and citation interval," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(7), pages 4495-4512, July.

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