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Selected Works

alan l porter

Research assessment

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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Science and Technology Studies

Validating Indicators Of Interdisciplinarity: Linking Bibliometric Measures To Studies Of Engineering Research Labs, David Roessner, Alan L. Porter, Nancy J. Nersessian, Stephen J. Carley Jan 2013

Validating Indicators Of Interdisciplinarity: Linking Bibliometric Measures To Studies Of Engineering Research Labs, David Roessner, Alan L. Porter, Nancy J. Nersessian, Stephen J. Carley

alan l porter

This article examines the extent to which specific features of interdisciplinary research are accurately reflected in selected bibliometric measures of scholarly publications over time. To test the validity of these measures, we compare knowledge of research processes and impact based on ethnographic studies of a well-established researcher’s laboratory, together with personal interview data, against bibliometric indicators of cognitive integration, diffusion, and impact represented in the entire portfolio of papers produced by this researcher over time.


The Rcn (Research Coordination Network) Experiment: Can We Build New Research Networks?, Alan L. Porter, Todd A. Crowl, Jon Garner Jan 2012

The Rcn (Research Coordination Network) Experiment: Can We Build New Research Networks?, Alan L. Porter, Todd A. Crowl, Jon Garner

alan l porter

The U.S. National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network (RCN) program broke new ground in funding the development of new research communities of practice. This assessment of RCN supports the conclusion that networking activity was increased for a sample set of projects compared to a control group. Journal articles resulting from RCN support score as highly interdisciplinary. Moreover, those articles appear as notably influential, being published in high impact journals and being highly cited. The RCN program does indeed seem to be fostering new biological science research networks.


Assessment Of Brazil’S Research Literature, David J. Schoeneck, Alan L. Porter, Ronald N. Kostoff, Elena M. Berger Jan 2011

Assessment Of Brazil’S Research Literature, David J. Schoeneck, Alan L. Porter, Ronald N. Kostoff, Elena M. Berger

alan l porter

This “country study” analyzes substantial samples of research papers by Brazilian authors drawn from two global databases. The approach and the findings may each be of interest. Our approach is to examine R&D outputs through bibliometrics (to identify key authors, institutions, journals, etc) and text mining with taxonomy generation (to identify pervasive research thrusts). We extend prior country studies by providing for interactive data access and exploring military-relevant R&D information. The resulting publication activity profiles provide insight on Brazilian R&D strengths and investment strategies, and help identify opportunities for collaboration. Brazil, a nation of 190 million, evidences a substantial research …


Practical Research Proposal And Publication Profiling, Alan L. Porter, David J. Schoeneck, David Roessner, Jon Garner Jan 2010

Practical Research Proposal And Publication Profiling, Alan L. Porter, David J. Schoeneck, David Roessner, Jon Garner

alan l porter

We present means to enable profiling to situate research activities (such as proposals or publications) within research domains, identify cognitive and social networks, and track knowledge transfers. Here we profile a set of 123 National Science Foundation educational research awards. We investigate NSF award summaries, proposal references, publications by the funded researchers, and citations to those publications. Our Integration measure and science overlay maps show that these ROLE/REESE programs have facilitated interdisciplinary research. NSF program managers were able to associate highly cited researchers into key contributing communities using the co-citation maps. We explore “before vs. after” research patterns to examine …


Science Overlay Maps: A New Tool For Research Policy And Library Management, Ismael Rafols, Alan L. Porter, Loet Leydesdorff Jan 2010

Science Overlay Maps: A New Tool For Research Policy And Library Management, Ismael Rafols, Alan L. Porter, Loet Leydesdorff

alan l porter

We present a novel approach to visually locate bodies of research within the sciences, both at each moment of time and dynamically. This article describes how this approach fits with other efforts to locally and globally map scientific outputs. We then show how these science overlay maps help benchmark, explore collaborations, and track temporal changes, using examples of universities, corporations, funding agencies, and research topics. We address their conditions of application and discuss advantages, downsides and limitations. Overlay maps especially help investigate the increasing number of scientific developments and organisations that do not fit within traditional disciplinary categories. We make …