In the article two seemingly distinct perspectives regarding the modeling of network dynamics are combined. One perspective is found in the work of physicists and mathematicians who formally introduced the small world model and the mechanism of preferential attachment. The other perspective is sociological and focuses on the process of cumulative advantage and considers the agency of individual actors in a network. We test hypotheses, based on work drawn from these perspectives, regarding the structure and dynamics of scientific collaboration networks. The data we use are for four scientific disciplines in the Slovene system of science. The results deal with the overall topology of these networks and specific processes that generate them. The two perspectives can be joined to mutual benefit. Within this combined approach, the presence of smallworld Structures was confirmed. However preferential attachment is far more complex than advocates of a single autonomous mechanism claim.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30657885
Discerning the essential structure of social networks is a major task. Blockmodeling is one technique for delineating network structure. Social network data usually contain different types of errors, including missing data that can wreak havoc during data analyses. While we know little about its vulnerability to missing data problems, it is reasonable to expect that it is vulnerable given its positional nature. We focus on actor non-response and treatments for this. We examine their impacts on blockmodeling results using simulated and real networks. A set of ‘known’ networks are used, errors due to actor non-response are introduced and are then treated in different ways. Blockmodels are fitted to these treated networks and compared to those for the known networks. The outcome indicators are the correspondence of both position memberships and identified blockmodel structures. Both the amount and type of non-response, and considered treatments, have an impact on delineated blockmodel structures.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31119197
The paper introduces the use of blockmodeling in the micro-level study of the internal structure of co-authorship networks over time. Variations in scientific productivity and researcher or research group visibility were determined by observing authors’ role in the core-periphery structure and crossing this information with bibliometric data. The used approach combines bibliometric and social network analysis to explore scientific collaboration networks and monitor individual and group careers from new perspectives. Its application on a small-scale case study is intended as an example and can be used in other disciplines.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31397725
This is an invited paper with two published discussions and the reply of the authors in the journal Quality&Quantity. The complete longitudinal coauthorship networks for four research disciplines (biotechnology, mathematics, physics and sociology) for 1986–2005 was compared.The complete bibliographies of all researchers registered at the national Slovene Research Agency were analyzed. The number of coauthored publications grew much faster than solo authored productions, especially after independence in 1991 and the integration of Slovenian science into broader EU systems. Using blockmodeling, it is shown how coauthorship structures change in all disciplines. The most frequent form was a coreperiphery structure with multiple simple cores with intense coauthorship collaboration, a periphery with no coauthorship collaboration and a semiperiphery with some nonsystematic collaborations within scientific discipline. Two ‘lab’ fields, biotechnology and physics, have larger semiperipheries than peripheries. The reverse holds for mathematics and sociology, two ‘office’ disciplines.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30291037
The paper deals with some processes generating increases of research collaboration. The major empirical focus is on the increasing tendency of coauthorship in sociology in Slovenia. Bibliometric analyses, based on two joint national research information systems (SICRIS and COBISS), shows the amount of coauthored publications increased over the last two decades. Blockmodeling of coauthorship networks has shown that the sociologists who are not systematically tied to strongly connected and wellestablished research groups produce the most excellent scientific publications in their field.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30087517