Assessing author research focus using vector space modeling

A method for comparison of research focus by a group of authors using vector space modeling is presented. The body of published work by an author or group of authors in a given field may be represented as a vocabulary based on language use. Using vector space modeling, publications may be represented as vectors, resulting in a topic space. The works of a given author may be mapped onto the space, resulting in an author space. The density of a given author space provides an indication of the coherence of the author's body of work, where a high density author space is indicative of a more focused research agenda and a low density author space indicates more varied areas of investigation or language use. This concept was applied to a set of publications appearing in eight high impact factor journals in information science from which the 100 most prolific authors were identified. Their author space characteristics were determined and compared to identify those with the most focused research. The findings demonstrate significant correlations in authors' numbers of publications, vocabulary usage, and resulting author space density, with some exceptions.