Interdisciplinarity as diversity in citation patterns among journals: Rao-Stirling diversity,relative variety,and the Gini coefficient |
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| Authors: | Loet Leydesdorff Caroline S Wagner Lutz Bornmann |
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| Institution: | 1. Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, PO Box 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam, The Netherlands;2. John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43210, USA;3. Division for Science and Innovation Studies, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society, Hofgartenstr. 8, 80539 Munich, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Questions of definition and measurement continue to constrain a consensus on the measurement of interdisciplinarity. Using Rao-Stirling (RS) Diversity sometimes produces anomalous results. We argue that these unexpected outcomes can be related to the use of “dual-concept diversity” which combines “variety” and “balance” in the definitions (ex ante). We propose to modify RS Diversity into a new indicator (DIV) which operationalizes “variety,” “balance,” and “disparity” independently and then combines them ex post. “Balance” can be measured using the Gini coefficient. We apply DIV to the aggregated citation patterns of 11,487 journals covered by the Journal Citation Reports 2016 of the Science Citation Index and the Social Sciences Citation Index as an empirical domain and, in more detail, to the citation patterns of 85 journals assigned to the Web-of-Science category “information science & library science” in both the cited and citing directions. We compare the results of the indicators and show that DIV provides improved results in terms of distinguishing between interdisciplinary knowledge integration (citing references) versus knowledge diffusion (cited impact). The new diversity indicator and RS diversity measure different features. A routine for the measurement of the various operationalization of diversity (in any data matrix) is made available online. |
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| Keywords: | Interdisciplinary Diversity Journal Gini Variety Rao-Stirling |
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