Visualizing information science: Author direct citation analysis in China and around the world

Author direct citation analysis (ADCA, also called inter-citation or cross citation) is a new feasible and applicable technique for exploring knowledge communication and discovering scientific structure. This study explored ADCA among prolific, highly cited, and core authors in information science in China and around the world. The results revealed the following. (1) The datasets in China and around the world cover overlapping, but also unique topics. Research subjects on information science around the world can be divided into three categories and 10 clusters; meanwhile, that in China can be divided into three categories and 9 clusters. Chinese scholars who are mostly involved in cross subjects and multi-fields are not as specialized and profound as foreign scholars. An obvious imbalance exists in the evolution of discipline structure around the world, indicating the necessity of a synchronous promotion of research specialty and cross comprehensiveness. Chinese scholars concentrate more on topics such as competitive intelligence, information resource management, and information retrieval, and they focus less on information security and user analysis. (2) Knowledge communication between active authors is stronger than the knowledge flow from highly influential authors to active authors around the world; meanwhile, Chinese researchers tend to adopt the knowledge of authoritative literature. The knowledge flow through bidirectional direct citation is related to mutual knowledge communication. Authoritative scholars are produced when prolific authors cite highly cited authors. The level of mutual recognition among Chinese scholars has not reached that among foreign scholars; in the former, less bidirectional flow of knowledge is involved, and unidirectional flow is limited to geographical proximity, cooperation, or teacher–student relationship. (3) In contrast to traditional author co-citation analysis (ACA), ADCA pays more attention to the mutual interaction among currently active scholars and to mainly showing the current research focus.