Research dynamics, impact, and dissemination: A topic-level analysis

AbstractIn informetrics, journals have been used as a standard unit to analyze research impact, productivity, and scholarship. The increasing practice of interdisciplinary research challenges the effectiveness of journal-based assessments. The aim of this article is to highlight topics as a valuable unit of analysis. A set of topic-based approaches is applied to a data set on library and information science publications. Results show that topic-based approaches are capable of revealing the research dynamics, impact, and dissemination of the selected data set. The article also identifies a nonsignificant relationship between topic popularity and impact and argues for the need to use both variables in describing topic characteristics. Additionally, a flow map illustrates critical topic-level knowledge dissemination channels.