Dynamic and
evolutionary updates of
classificatory
schemes in scientific journal structures
Journal of the American Society
for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), forthcoming
(click here for the PDF-version of the full paper)
Abstract
Can the inclusion of new journals in the Science Citation Index be used for the indication of structural change in the database and how can this change be compared with reorganizations of relations among previously included journals? Change in the number of journals (n) is distinguished from change in the number of journal categories (m). While the number of journals can be considered as a given at each moment in time, the number of journal categories is based on a reconstruction that is time-stamped ex post. The reflexive reconstruction is in need of an update when new information becomes available in a next year. Implications of this shift towards an evolutionary perspective are specified.
Loet Leydesdorff
University of Amsterdam, Science & Technology Dynamics
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.leydesdorff.net ; loet@leydesdorff.net