Comparing Different Perspectives of Characterizing Interdisciplinarity of Scientific Publications: Author vs. Publication Perspectives

This study compares two distinct perspectives of characterizing interdisciplinarity of scientific publications, namely author- and publication-based perspectives. The publication-based perspectives calculate interdisciplinarity of a publication from its references and citing papers. Author-based perspectives characterize interdisciplinarity of a scientific publication using its authors’ prior published records. We employ various extant diversity indicators including variety, balance, disparity, Simpson’s index, ² D ^S , and ID to capture the characteristics of interdisciplinarity from different perspectives. An overall analysis, journal-level analysis, and case studies are provided in the current study. We find that author- and publication-based perspectives are distinct from each other and they contribute to a more holistic picture of interdisciplinarity. Additionally, our results show that characterizing interdisciplinarity from authors’ citing papers would generate a ranking that better distinguishes publications. CCS CONCEPTS • Information systems~Information systems applications~Digital libraries and archives