A Knowledge Map Based on a Keyword-Relation Network by Using a Research Paper Database in the Computer Engineering Field

A knowledge map, which has been recently applied in various fields, is discovering characteristics hidden in a large amount of information and showing a tangible output to understand the meaning of the discovery. In this paper, we suggested a knowledge map for research trend analysis based on keyword-relation networks which are constructed by using a database of the domestic journal articles in the computer engineering field from 2000 through 2010. From that knowledge map, we could infer influential changes of a research topic related a specific keyword through examining the change of sizes of the connected components to which the keyword belongs in the keyword-relation networks. In addition, we observed that the size of the largest connected component in the keyword-relation networks is relatively small and groups of high-similarity keyword pairs are clustered in them by comparison with the random networks. This implies that the research field corresponding to the largest connected component is not so huge and many small-scale topics included in it are highly clustered and loosely-connected to each other. our proposed knowledge map can be considered as a approach for the research trend analysis while it is impossible to obtain those results by conventional approaches such as analyzing the frequency of an individual keyword.