The evolution of data science and big data research: A bibliometric analysis

Daphne R. Raban · Avishag Gordon

In this study the evolution of Big Data (BD) and Data Science (DS) literatures and the relationship between the two are analyzed by bibliometric indicators that help establish the course taken by publications on these research areas before and after forming concepts. We observe a surge in BD publications along a gradual increase in DS publications. Interestingly, a new publications course emerges combining the BD and DS concepts. We evaluate the three literature streams using various bibliometric indicators including research areas and their origin, central journals, the countries producing and funding research and startup organizations, citation dynamics, dispersion and author commitment. We fnd that BD and DS have difering academic origin and diferent leading publications. Of the two terms, BD is more salient, possibly catalyzed by the strong acceptance of the pre-coordinated term by the research community, intensive citation activity, and also, we observe, by generous funding from Chinese sources. Overall, DS literature serves as a theory-base for BD publications.

本研究利用文献计量指标中分析了大数据（BD）和数据科学（DS）文献的演变以及两者之间的关系，本研究有助于在概念形成之前和之后在这些研究领域开设相关课程。我们观察到随着DS文献的逐渐增加，BD文献在不断激增。有趣的是，一个新的课程将BD和DS概念整合在一起。我们使用不同的文献计量指标来评估这三种文献流，包括研究领域及其起源、核心期刊，研究和启动组织的产生和资助国家，引文动态，分布和作者。我们发现BD和DS具有不同的学术渊源和不同的领先出版物。我们从大量中文资助文献中发现，在这两个术语中，BD更为显着，可能是由于研究者强烈接受pre-coordinated term的催化。总体而言，DS文献是BD出版物的一个理论基础。

DATA

The data in this study was drawn from the database Clarivate Analytics (also known as the WoS, Web of Science) 2019 core collection. This is a selective index of good quality publications. The search was conducted on titles and abstracts of scientifc peer-reviewed publications (N=41,961 for BD, N=244,695 for DS, N=3,552 for interchangeable use). Publications containing BD and DS as pre-coordinated concepts were retrieved from 2006 to March 2019, including publications that use these terms interchangeably (N = 7938 for BD, N = 2648 for DS, N=242 for interchangeable use).

......

Methodology

The retrieved set of publications was analyzed to discover overall productivity, current research areas and their origin, central journals and citation patterns, the countries producing and funding research and startup organizations (Hartmann et al. 2016).
The dynamics of BD and DS over time was examined by bibliometric indicators including “highly cited” papers and the immediacy index. Highly cited papers are those that received a high number of citations, usually within the range of 10 recent years or less, depending on the discipline. The highly cited papers indicator was devised to bypass the high number of citations accumulated during a very long publications’ history of researchers. Immediacy index is calculated by dividing citations by publications within the year of publication. The immediacy index indicates, to a large extent, the
journal impact (Tomer 1986; Yue et al. 2004), and is also considered to be an indication of the “research front” of a science feld (Meadows 1998: 61).
The immediacy index was complemented by the examination of the Price Index which measures the citations to publications in the last fve years as compared to the total number of citations per topic, and examines the aging of the literature. “Ageing patterns can be characterized as a combination of phases of maturation and decline in citation processes” (Glänzel et al. 2016: 2169).
The three indicators were used to reveal which concept, BD or DS, is more in use. Intensive usage in a feld indicates a dynamic and promising science feld. The Price Index was measured in two years: in 2010 when all three literatures already existed, and in 2018, more recently, to observe the dynamic of the three trends.
Dispersion in the felds of BD and DS was calculated by comparing the number of publications yielded by searches by topic to the same searches by title. A high percent of dispersion indicates a feld with a small cohesive literature core (Tal and Gordon 2017).
Another test was that of commitment of authors to the research feld which is an indication of regularity and constancy by authors who are not “one-time visitors” to the feld.
Such authors could help in creating theories and paradigms in the research area and maintain continuity in the research feld (González-Alcaide et al. 2016; Gordon 2007).

Result（部分图表）