A comparison of citation-based clustering and topic modeling for science mapping

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Xie, Qianqian, Waltman, Ludo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Xie, Qianqian
Waltman, Ludo
author_facet Xie, Qianqian
Waltman, Ludo
contents Understanding the different ways in which different science mapping approaches capture the structure of scientific fields is critical. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two commonly used approaches, topic modeling (TM) and citation-based clustering (CC), to assess their respective strengths, weaknesses, and the characteristics of their results. We compare the two approaches using cluster-to-topic and topic-to-cluster mappings based on science maps of cardiovascular research generated by TM and CC. Our findings reveal that relations between topics and clusters are generally weak, with limited overlap between topics and clusters. Only in a few exceptional cases do more than one-third of the documents in a topic belong to the same cluster, or vice versa. For TM the presence of highly similar topics is a considerable challenge. A strength of TM is its ability to represent societal needs related to cardiovascular disease, potentially offering valuable insights for policymakers. In contrast, CC excels in depicting the intellectual structure of cardiovascular diseases, with a strong capability to reflect scientific micro-communities. This study deepens the understanding of the use of TM and CC for science mapping, providing insights for users on how to apply these approaches based on their needs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_06160
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A comparison of citation-based clustering and topic modeling for science mapping
Xie, Qianqian
Waltman, Ludo
Digital Libraries
Understanding the different ways in which different science mapping approaches capture the structure of scientific fields is critical. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two commonly used approaches, topic modeling (TM) and citation-based clustering (CC), to assess their respective strengths, weaknesses, and the characteristics of their results. We compare the two approaches using cluster-to-topic and topic-to-cluster mappings based on science maps of cardiovascular research generated by TM and CC. Our findings reveal that relations between topics and clusters are generally weak, with limited overlap between topics and clusters. Only in a few exceptional cases do more than one-third of the documents in a topic belong to the same cluster, or vice versa. For TM the presence of highly similar topics is a considerable challenge. A strength of TM is its ability to represent societal needs related to cardiovascular disease, potentially offering valuable insights for policymakers. In contrast, CC excels in depicting the intellectual structure of cardiovascular diseases, with a strong capability to reflect scientific micro-communities. This study deepens the understanding of the use of TM and CC for science mapping, providing insights for users on how to apply these approaches based on their needs.
title A comparison of citation-based clustering and topic modeling for science mapping
topic Digital Libraries
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.06160