Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

17 Pages Posted: 29 Jan 2008

See all articles by Nees Jan van Eck

Nees Jan van Eck

Erasmus University Rotterdam - Erasmus School of Economics

Ludo Waltman

Erasmus University Rotterdam - Faculty of Economics and Business

Date Written: 13 2007, 12

Abstract

We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.

Keywords: author cocitation analysis, similarity measure, Pearson correlation, cosine, information science

JEL Classification: M11, R4, M, C19

Suggested Citation

van Eck, Nees Jan and Waltman, Ludo, Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis (13 2007, 12). ERIM Report Series Reference No. ERS-2007-091-LIS, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1088220

Nees Jan Van Eck (Contact Author)

Erasmus University Rotterdam - Erasmus School of Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://people.few.eur.nl/nvaneck/

Ludo Waltman

Erasmus University Rotterdam - Faculty of Economics and Business ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam, NL 3062 PA
Netherlands
+31 10 408 1182 (Phone)
+31 10 408 9640 (Fax)

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