New visualization tool to foster understanding of science dynamics

A new set of tools released today by Science-Metrix Inc. seeks to improve the way we talk about and understand science - from the classroom to the boardroom. The US/Canada-based research evaluation firm has developed a new, multi-lingual classification of scientific journals, which is accompanied by an interactive web tool.

The interactive 'Scientific Journals Ontology Explorer' allows users to visualise the links between 175 scientific specialties in 18 languages, from Arabic to Swedish. The journal classification, which covers 15,000 peer-reviewed scientific journals, was translated by more than 22 international experts who volunteered their time and expertise, making the tools available to a worldwide audience.

This set of tools has applications beyond academia, such as for governments and firms tracking their performance in specific fields, as well as in science outreach and education.

"We hope this visualization tool will be used by teachers to show students how science spans a broad universe and how interlinked scientific research really is" says Eric Archambault, president of Science-Metrix. "By sharing this tool with the wider community, we also hope to foster discussion and research on the contemporary scientific system, and promote a greater understanding of science dynamics."

This classification provides a timely representation of the structure of modern science by including not only the traditional areas of scientific inquiry, but also the more contemporary areas of research such as biotechnology and nanotechnology and enabling fields such as epidemiology.

Science-Metrix used both the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier) to produce a new, systematic classification of the more widely diffused peer-reviewed journals. The approach was inspired by the best of breed classifications and used an advanced algorithmic assignment followed by six rounds of expert, manual validation to assign journals to the most representative scientific specialty.