Identification of experts using social network analysis (SNA)

Technologies are developing rapidly and the necessity of specific strategies and techniques that contribute to a more effective, congruent, and faster association of ideas are important. Many methods, tools, and techniques require the opinion of experts or debates of a certain topics. Finding these experts is not easy and the knowledge and experience on a determined field will determine the quality of the results. Therefore, research collaboration among experts has gained importance during the last decades, especially in the area of technology. Since 1960's, the idea of identifying the main actors in a society or a person that has a prestige in the community has gained interest. Social Network Analysis is a common method for finding who is the knowledgeable person in a community. In this paper, SNA and Bibliometric Analysis are used to determine the lead authors, co-authors, institutions, contact information in a period from 2005 to 2015. The main objectives of this paper are to identify experts in the area of Energy Efficiency -Commercial Refrigeration and to develop a methodology to identify experts by using Social Network Analysis and Bibliographic Analysis. The method is based on Social Network Analysis and Bibliometric Analysis using journal sources such as Web of Science and Compendex. Since the main objective is to identify experts that influence the research and development in the Commercial Refrigeration area, the study includes the identification of experts in the U.S. and around the world. A software was developed using “R”. The results show a detailed information of the authors in order to be used in the specific research areas.