Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization

by Chaomei Chen

This is an examination of the history and the state of the art of the quest for visualizing scientific knowledge and the dynamics of its development. Through an interdisciplinary perspective this book presents profound visions, pivotal advances, and insightful contributions made by generations of researchers and professionals, which portrays a holistic view of the underlying principles and mechanisms of the development of science.
This updated and extended second “Anyone who tries to follow the exponential growth of the literature on citation analysis and scientometrics knows how difficult it is to keep pace. Chaomei Chen has identified the significant methods and applications in visual graphics and made them clear to the uninitiated. Derek Price would have loved this book which not only pays homage to him but also to the key players in information science and a wide variety of others in the sociology and history of science.” – Eugene Garfield “This is a wide ranging book on information visualization, with a specific focus on science mapping. Science mapping is still in its infancy and many intellectual challenges remain to be investigated and many of which are outlined in the final chapter. In this new edition Chaomei Chen has provided an essential text, useful both as a primer for new entrants and as a comprehensive overview of recent developments for the seasoned practitioner.” – Henry Small Chaomei Chen is a Professor in the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA, and a ChangJiang Scholar at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Information Visualization and the author of Turning The Nature of Creativity (Springer, 2012) and Information Beyond the Horizon (Springer, 2004, 2006).

381 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Dr. Chaomei Chen is a Professor of Informatics in the College of Computing and Informatics at Drexel University. He is a Chang Jiang Scholar at Dalian University of Technology, China since 2008 and was a visiting professor at Brunel University in the United Kingdom (2002-2008). He received his bachelor degree in mathematics from Nankai University, China, a master degree in computation from the University of Oxford in England and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Liverpool, England. His research interests include information visualization, visual analytics, knowledge domain visualization, mapping scientific frontiers, and theories of scientific discoveries and creativity.

His work has been cited over 7,950 times on Google Scholar. He is the principal investigator of research grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other government agencies and industrial sponsors such as Pfizer and IMS Health. His earlier research was funded by the European Commission, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK), and the Library and Information Commission (UK). Dr. Chen created the widely used software CiteSpace for visualizing and analyzing emerging trends in scientific literature. CiteSpace has been used by users worldwide.

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