Trends in Science Mapping: The co-use of scientific literature as evidence of the interests of researchers

Abstract

This paper explores de possibility of constructing science maps based on the co-use of the staff of an academic institution make of scientific literature. For this, we define co-use as the co-occurrence of scientific information requests by a given user in platform of scientific journals. We use request data from the University of Navarre to the ScienceDirect platform in 2012 in order to analyze the potential of such methodological approach. We conclude by emphasizing the viability of such methodology when exploring the research interests of an academic institution along with the relations between different disciplines.