The Network Effect

The relevance of this to any discipline and ours in particular is that it offers an opportunity to look for patterns in our own scientific collaborations. We need ways to characterize what work is being carried out in an area, the impact it's having, who's being influenced by it, who are the sources of expertise on a particular topic, where the hubs are, and so on. These broad questions of scientific-knowledge management and of the structure and nature of scientific domains are also amenable to our methods and technologies. A prime example ...