How to address the role of a Journal as a Knowledge Transfer Vector between disciplines? A Case Study Relying on Citation Analysis

In this study our aim was to characterize the role of a scientific journal as a vector for the transfer of knowledge between different research communities. To detect the size and extent of a journal's readership, we used citation analysis of two scientific corpora constructed around the production of one journal. The first was made up of ex ante references or references cited in the bibliographies of all the articles published in the journal over a given year of publication while the second consisted of the articles' ex post references - subsequent works which cite them. Both corpora underwent a stage of clustering which produced a theme-based representation of the contents made possible by automatic indexing. Computer-aided thematic categorization validated by an expert gave a representation of both corpora through a vector of categories each element which indicated the level of representativity of the category in the corpus. A role indicator was then defined based on a calculation of cosine similarity between the two vectors of categories associated with the journal. This indicator qualified the behaviour of the journal in terms of a transfer vector for knowledge. The case study involved two journals in the field of Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies.