THE BRAZILIAN RESEARCH IN INFORMATION METRIC STUDIES: proximity among prominent researchers and related areas

Abstract

This research aims to identify and analyze the prominent Brazilian and international researchers in Information Metric Studies in Brazil, the proximity established among them from the Brazilian researchers' perspectives, the disciplines, areas or sub-areas of knowledge that contribute for the theoretical and methodological development in order to provide subsidies and instruments for the Information Metric Studies. The objectives are analyzed in light of the nature of the researches declared by this scientific community, in order to contribute to identify and visualize the possible similarities and theoretical-methodological differences adopted by these groups. As research procedure, it was used the questionnaire as a data collection instrument. Out of the universe of 42 Brazilian researchers, 18 (similar to 43%) responded to the questionnaire. The co-citation network indicates a high degree of cohesion in the group of Brazilian and foreign researchers, with major presence of the latter. Regarding the areas, sub-areas and disciplines of knowledge that contribute to the epistemological, theoretical and methodological development, we highlight the areas of Exact Sciences, Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, with the first one being cited by most respondents. The Human Sciences area appeared as the second most cited. The Information Science, Scientometrics, Scientific Communication, Scientific Methodology and Bibliometry compose the subareas mentioned within the Social Sciences area. We conclude pointing to parity among the indicators derived from qualitative and quantitative data as well as the completion of the two analyzes.