Evolución y alcance multidisciplinar de tres técnicas de análisis bibliométrico

Objective: the current study aims to analyze the behavior of scientific production on three bibliometric analysis techniques: co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and terms co-occurrence. Methodology: the Web of Science is used as data source. Productivity and impact measures are used to characterize the behavior of each technique practices. Two new indices to determine the multidisciplinary scope of research are proposed, which are complemented by documentary analysis to interpret the results and establish the reference frameworks. Results: the leading authors, institutions and countries are identified, as well as the number of serial publications where the research was disseminated, and the Web of Science subject categories where they are classified. The growing evolution of the literature that uses these techniques for the representation and analysis of knowledge domains was evidenced. The technological domains predominated in the thematic production core, although in the thematic citations core there was also the presence of biomedical, economic and social environments. Conclusions: the existence of a highly productive core of institutions and countries evidences the sustained, intensive and extensive use of these techniques, given the global community recognition of their importance and validity. The proposed indicators allowed to identify the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the scientific production related to these analytical techniques. In this way, the influence of metrics and their techniques is made visible, which transcend the limits of the knowledge domain that originated them, from theoretical and meta-theoretical proposals through multiple disciplinary spaces.