Tracing the development of mapping knowledge domains

Prof. Zeyuan Liu was the first to introduce the concept of knowledge-domain mapping to the scientific community in China. Knowledge-domain maps are useful tools for tracking the frontiers of science and technology, facilitating knowledge management, and assisting scientific and technological decision-making. Science overlay mapping as a type of knowledge-domain mapping can visualize the location of research within the sciences from both snapshots at any fixed time and from a dynamic perspective. Most current science overlay maps merely show the basic landscape of a research field during specific periods, but fail to track temporal changes and interactions between different research fields. Applying an individual document-based cross-citation approach to a dataset retrieved in the Web of Science Core Collection for the period 1999–2018, we have built a global science map based on cognitive similarities across the 16 ECOOM major research fields. Using citation-link strength (CLS), we then traced information flows to better understand how the internal structures of these research fields have evolved. The paper concludes with a brief description of the emergence and development of the mapping of knowledge domains in China, in general, and highlights the contribution of Zeyuan Liu to the topic of mapping knowledge domains, in particular.