Dynamic Structures of Science

本研究将尝试使用期刊之间的引文来描述科学之间的学科转变。因子分析将用于衡量不同层次的科学结构，如学科、子领域和专业，以及结构随时间的变化——包括跨学科的变化以及新科学领域的出现。一种可靠的方法来跟踪学科之间关系的变化和新研究领域的出现，对于《科学与工程指标》及其政策导向读者来说将是非常有价值的。该项目的目的是探讨应用所提出的方法的实际问题及其结果的有用性。创造描述科学动态结构的方法可能会提高我们的能力，使我们比目前固定的期刊集更准确地反映科学领域的国家参与的真实水平。

This study will experiment with the use of citations among journals to describe disciplinary shifts among the sciences. Factor analysis will be used to measure the structure of science at various heirarchical levels such as disciplines, subfields and specialties, as well as changes in the structure over time -- including changes in interdisciplinarity as well as the emergence of new areas of science. A reliable methodology for tracking the changes in relationships among disciplines and the emergence of new areas of research would be of great value to Science & Engineering Indicators and to its policy oriented audience. The objective of this project is to explore the practical problems in applying the proposed method and the usefulness of its results. The creation of methods for depicting the dynamic structure of science may improve our capacity to more accurately reflect real levels of national participation by field of science than do the current fixed journal sets.