Humanities & Social Sciences Communications ARTICLE Qssa OPEN Dispersion of ICT-related subject terms in information and knowledge management publications: A Bradford analysis Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha® '™ & Dennis N. Ocholla?= The application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in information and knowledge management (IKM) has attracted the attention of library and information Science (LIS) scholars in the recent past. The multidscplinary and interdiscplinary nature of ICTS means that the ICT literature i published in several fields of knowledge. Although Bracford's law of cispersion is commonly used to determine the core journals in a given field or dis- Ciplne or topic of study, this study attempts to use the principles ofthe law to determine the core concepts of ICTS within the information and knowledge management Iterature. Data wwas obtained {rom EBSCO Discovery's Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracs (UISTA) and the Library and Information Science Source (LISS) databases using 2 variety of keywords as search terms. The procedures of conducting a Bradford analysis were followed to determine the core subject terms in ICTS as reflected inthe IKM group of articles published between 1998 and 2017. The results indicate that the application of ICT in IKM Iaegely occurs in the fields medicine, business and commerce, education and training (higher education and taining), decision sciences, and industrial management. I was also noted that the core subjects varied from one study period to another; technology-associated subject terms were largely visible; and the dispersion of subject terms fits the Bradford's dispersion We however noted that the dispersion of articles according to Bradtord's zones is not accurately representative ofthe principles of the Law. The study has implications for col lection development, searching and retrieval practices, and the application of Bradford's law beyond the analysis of core journals or publications in not only IKM but also in the field of Mbrary and information science "Department of Inormation Scene, Unversity of South Afri, PO Box 382 Unisa Pretora 0003, South Aiea. “Department of Information Stuces, Usivesity of Zulang,XI001, KwaDlangerwe 2886, South Arce. Mem [email protected], choladunizulac22 ‘NcFS COMMUNICATIONS | 2622)A76 tps //doereN01087/se598.072-.0188.2 ‘ARTICLE t Introduction ne of the areas that have received considerable attention, fom bibliometricians are studies seeking to determine core areas of study, research, competencies, subject terms, and journals. Diverse methods and techniques have been ‘employed to make such determinations, Among the most com: ‘© Core/periphery model, mostly used to identify core terms in a text, journal or subject area (eg, Borgatti and Everett, 1999; Onyancha and Ocholla, 200%; Ocholla et al, 2010; Onyancha and Mokwatlo, 2012) ‘* Subject specialization index, mostly used to assess the concentration of research in given topics, fields, or disciplines (eg. UNESCO, 2015; Davis, 1983; Pouris and Pouris, 2008; Onyancha, 2018) ‘© Bradford's Law of scattering, commonly used to identify core journals in a subject area or feld (eg. Singh and Bebi, 2014), ‘This study focuses on the possible use of Bradford's law to determine the core subject terms of information and commu nication technologies (ICTS) as reflected in the published articles ‘on the sub-field of information and knowledge management (KM). The application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in diverse sectors has resulted in many sci- entific investigations and scholarly outputs throughout the world ‘The trend of research on ICTs has accelerated in the recent past, and more particularly inthe latter part of the 2011-2020 decade, For instance, a study conducted by Onyancha (2018) noted that ICTs has emerged as one of the leading topics of research in the library and information science field. Onyancha's (2018) study revealed that research on different ICTs has continued to dom- inate LIS research. Knowledge management, too, has emerged as 4 hot research topic having emerged from nowhere so to speak to rank the 2nd in the top 20 author supplied keywords in 2011-2015 (see Onyancha 2018). A study to assess the applica tion of ICTs in IKM, an emerging sub-field of LIS, as wel as to identify the core subject terms in the sub-feld is therefore timely, ‘especially in view of the fact that knowledge management is increasingly becoming reliant on ICTs for effective and successful ‘execution (Lépez etal, 2009). A content analysis of the literature 1 identify the core concepts within a given subject domain serves many purposes, including delineating subject terms, topics or disciplines, establishing the level of interest in a subject field, ascertaining the quality of orgenization of information resources through indexing and abstracting of the literature, determining the growth of a discipline or subject area, and aiding searching and retrieval of relevant information for information seekers and ‘users, as well as gauging the level of interest and adoption of specific terms to describe a subject domain or discipline (see Onyancha and Ocholla, 2009; Girap et al, 2014). The cusrent study uses Bradford's to determine the core ICTs subject terms as reflected in the IKM literature, Bradford's law: a brief overview Bradford's law, formulated in 1934 by Samuel C Bradford, states that “if scientic journals are arranged in order of decreasing productivity of articles on a given subject, they may be divided into a nucleus of periodicals more particularly devoted to the subject and several groupe or zones containing the same number of articles as the nucleus, when the numbers of periodicals in the nucleus and succeeding zones will be as Linn’, where n is a ‘mulplier” (Bailén-Moreno et al, 2005, p. 213). Simply stated, the law states that in a given subject field over & given period of time, (a afew journals publish a relatively high percent of articles ina Geld: and (0) there ate many journals that publish only afew aitides cach (Diodato, 1994). Diodato (1994) argues that a Bradford analysis may be uted to test how well Bradford's law apples to a collection of items and sources (asully articles and jonals or to identify the cre of journals in afield. As Yatsko {2012) observes, a number of authors have offered suggestions to {@) danty the law (eg. Brookes, 1968, Ballin-Moreno et al 2005); (Doe its interpretation; (c) analyse its conformity with the other laws: and/or (d) to demonstrate the possibile ofits application for the analysis of various kinds of data (eg, Dr. al, 1979; Girap etal, 2014). Is on the bass of point (2) that this study was conducted. Iti worth noting however that there ate some scholars who have criticized the law, capecally the formula, (eg. Brookes, 1968; Urquhart, 1981; Heine, 1998, all as sited in Shenton and Tfay-Gibson, 2008). Citcism of this nature is not unexpected in scholarship. Despite the ertichims, Brad fords law remains a subject of much discussion a8 witnessed in recent studies. Related studies ‘Most studies that have been conducted on Bradford's law have sought to determine the dispersion of articles in journals in order to identify core journals in a subject field or discipline (Andrés, 2009; Hjerland and Nicolaien, 2005; Yatsko, 2012 Recent studies that have been conducted, using the Bradford analysis, o asseze journal productivity so as to identify core journals in a subject field include Desat et al. 2018), Wahid and Idrees (2017), and Neclamma and Gavisiddappa (2016), Yang et al. 2016), and Singhs and Bebi (2014). The law has also been applied to study the citations in a given journal in order to find out the list of core journals cited by authors publishing their works in a journal (Wahid and Idrees, 2017). For example, Singh and Bebi (2014) used Bradford's law to study the cited references in Ph.D. theses in social sciences of the University of Delhi and found that Bradford’ law fitted the study. Lately, however, there have been. attempts (o study the application of the law beyond its original focus in assessing journal productivity. Tsay (2008) conducted a study, by employing bibliometrics techniques and more particu larly the Bradford’s Law, to analyse the scattering and subj changes belween the citing and cited literature in digital lbraries, ‘The author noted that while the citing core journals were devoted to the subject of the “application of computer and information, technology to library implication”, the cited core journals addressed four main subject areas namely digital library orien: fation, general library and information science, new development in librarianship and brary technology (Tsay, 2008, p. 713). ‘would have been interesting to find out if the aforementioned. subject areas constituted the core subjects in the citing and cited. literature respectively Bradford's Law has also been applied to examine how well the distribution of ‘stations’ fits a Bradford-type distribution. In their study titled “sitation” distributions and Bradford's law in a closed. Web space, Faba-Pérez etal, (2003, p. $58) found that although the sitation distributions were coherent with those in previous experiments, the "plots of accumulated clusters of stations [ie plotting the accumulated sitations against accumulated targets] And targets did not fit the typical Bradford distribution Girap etal (2014) study on the application of Bradford's law to the evaluation af book collection ofthe library of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is pethaps the closest to the current study. Using the Universal Decimal Classification class numbers, the authors identified 27 main subject headings in which a total of 94.450 books at the library belonged. The authors then ranked the subject headings according to the number of books in Bradford. 1051 @a2y8876 ips //elar/Nos057/s599-022-0108.2ARTICLE type zones and noted that the subject headings formed three zones with Bradford's nucleus (core zone) comprising two subject headings, the next zone consisting five subject headings while the Jast zone consisted of twenty (20) subject headings. When ‘expressed according to the Bradford's distribution, the pattern of the distribution of subject headings, according to Giap et al (2014), was 25:20, which was close to 12422, and in the Bradford-ype distribution of ivtn2. Apparendy, the dispersion pattern reported by Girap et al. (2014), in their study, does not perfectly fit Bradford's law but is close, as the 3ed zone in their study consists of far more subject headings (ie. 20) than the Bradford law suggests (Le. 8). Purpose and objectives of the study In view of the above and despite the arguments that Bradford's law can be adopted to assess the distribution of literature according to subject terms (see Yatsko, 2012), lese has been ‘explored in the subject of investigation ofthis paper. The purpose of this study therefore is to investigate the possibility of applying Bradford's law of dispersion to determine core subject terms of information and communication technologies (ICTS) as reflected in the information and knowledge management (IKM) literature. Speciic objectives of the study are: ‘0 determine the nature of dispersion of ICT-related subject terms and publications af reflected in the IKM literature using Bradford's law of scattering from 1998 2017. To identify the core subject terms in ICTs in the IKM literature, from 1998 to 2017. To determine the applicability of Bradford's law in the dispersion of the ICTs literature, from 1998 to 2017. Methods We used EBSCO Discovery and EBOSCO-HOST’s Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) and the Library and Information Science Source (LISS) databases to ‘extract relevant data for the study. The former hosts many internationally popular databases and was therefore found most desirable, The later two focus on LIS, a discipline within which knowledge management is considered as a ub-feld, An advance search platform was used to conduct searches for articles pub- lished on ICTs, by combining the search terms “Information and ‘Communication Technologies” and “information technologies” and their variations, on the one hand, and “information man- agement” and “knowledge management” terms, on the other Ihand, The search was conducted within the subject fields so as to ‘obtain results with high specificity and reliability. The search was limited {o articles published in peer-reviewed and scholarly publications between 1998 and 2017, all inclusive. The exact search query that was used to search for relevant data was: (SU information technology” OR “information technologies” OR “information systems” OR “information communication tech nologies” OR “information and communication technologies” OR “information & communication technology” OR “information & communication technologies")) AND SU (information man agement” OR “information resources management” OR “infor- ‘mation services management” OR “knowledge management” OR “knowledge organization”). The search yielded a total of 9479 antices, which were considered adequate for analysis. The extracted data (ie. subject terms) for each record was saved in text format to meet the requirements of the Bibexcel Software which was used to analyse the data in order to generate frequencies of term occurrence. As explained inthe section above con literature review, the core subject terms constituted those terms that formed the Bradford's nucleus. In order to determine the core subject terms, we followed the procedures outlined in ‘Andrés (2009) and Singh and Bebi (2014) regerding the appli tation of Bradford’ Law. ‘We ranked the subject terms and corresponding articles as reflected in Appendixes A~D. Each of the tables in the appendixes consists of the number of subject terms (column 1) appearing in how many number of documents (column 2), cumulative subject terms (column 3), cumulative documents (column 4) and the log {ln of cumulative subjects (column 5). Secondly, we calculated the value of Bradford's constant (K) foreach time period of study (ie 1998-2002, 2003-2007, 2008-2012, and 2013-2017) as follows = (ex Yq)? where y is Euler's number (ie. y=05772), You is the maximum, number of records for the highest ranked subject term, and p is the number of zones or Bradford's groups, Given that the number of ste em i the suber of anes st al fou he ) for each year period. Consequently, Bradford's constant # fo each peiod of stady nas calculated as follows a. 1988-2002: x = (1.781 283)! = 4.738191 2003-2007: x = (1.781 x 122)" = 3839534 2008-2012: = (1.781 x59)! = 3.201688 2013-2017: «= (1.781 x 135)!4 = 3.937762 ‘Thirdly, we calculated the numberof subject terms that would constitute the core or Bradford's nucleus using the following formula _ T=) ey where Tis the total number of subject terms which are the subject of research in the ICT documents, x is Bradford's constant and p 4s the number of zones or Bradford's groups. The value of the core subject terms (Le. ra) a6 obtained using the above formula, for each time zone, is provided in column three of Table 1 ‘The number of subject terms that would constitute the sub- sequent zones of Bradford's groups were calculated based on the ‘number that constituted the core zone and Bradford's constant Year of publication core (ro) Zone 10H) Zone 204) Zone 34) i9se-2002 No of sock terme 7 3 760) 759) No. of stcles 6 572 ne 857 2003-2007 No. af sunject terms 36 8 532 203, No.of articles ‘aso 137 1592 2160 2008-2012 No.of subleet terms 86 28 878 eit No. of atcles 1902 188 2255 258 2012-2017 No.of susject terms 38 11 595 Dae No. of articles 959 1295 ma 2509 wn 1a se LUMEN TIONS | (20249106 t/a NOIOST/e159.022.0708-2 3ARTICLE JM [TTecinologynformation Sewreas 2 Information Technology 3 Information Society A Internet 5 Libraries 6 Library Science 7 Biecronie Pusiatons 2s follows ‘This process of determining the number of subject terme that ‘constituted each zome was repeated for each time zone. The results are presented in Table 1. Once the number of the core ‘subject terms was generated, we identified the subject terms from the ranked list ofthe terme in each time zone and plotted them in ‘Tables 2-5). Results and discussion Nature of dispersion of ICT-related subject terms and pub- lications within the IKM context using Bradford's law of scattering. Table 1, which is drawn from the data presented in Appendices A-D, provides the results of the study according to Bradford's zones or groups, It reveals that, in 1998-2002, the core for nucleus consisted of seven subject terms, which were the subject of investigation or discussion in 776 articles while the core {in 2003-2007 comprised a total of 36 subject terms, which posted total of 1380 articles. In 2008-2012 and 2013-2017, there were 486 and 39 subject terms, with some 1902 and 959 articles in Bradford's core or nucleus, respectively. The other zones, which ‘ean be termed as peripheral, produced a pattern that was similar to the core but with a higher volume of subject terms and articles as rellected in columns 4-6 in Table 1. The Table further reveals that the number of subject terms that form the core in each time period varies, just as the subsequent zones, Appendices A-D demonstrate that the cumulative number of subject terms rove rapidly fom 960 spread across 2933 articles in 1998-2002 to 4049 subject terms which spread across 8874 articles 2008-2012, ‘only for it to fall to 3129 in 653 articles in 2013-2017, The least ‘number of subject terms witnessed in the 2013-2017 time period ‘can be attributed to retrospective indexing, where indexing time lag isa factor that influences the capturing ofa record's metadata and/or bibliographic information in a database, Another obser vation that can be made based on the data in Appendices A-D is that most subject terms appeared once (see column 1 in each ‘Table) in the articles. In summary, Table 1 shows that Bradford's ‘core consisted of the smallest number of subject terms when, ‘compared to the other three zones. The core can be said to consist fof the Key subject terms in a field. Core ICT-related subject terms in the IKM literature, accord ing to Bradford's nucleus, Having established the number of subject terms in each zone, according to Bradford's Law, we sought to identify and present the core subjects per the publica tion time period as shown in Tables 2-5. The analysis was also ‘meant to identify the core areas in which ICTS are applied in IKM. Table 2 presents the seven subject terms, which comprised ‘Subject term Technology High Teesnology Subject term Decision Mane Enterprise Resource Planning Management Public Institatons Information ystems Business enterprises Management Electronic Commerce Higher Education Teachng Eeveatonal Innovations Werk Environment Organ zational earning Management Seiance Mesial Care Inet Management Intellectual Capital Pubic Administration Teacher Training Information Economie Technology Development Business Planning Personnel Management Instructional Systems Investments College Teachers Corporate Culture Globalization Organization the core of Bradford's distribution for the period 1998-2002, Leading the pack is Technology—Information Services with 283 (24.76%) articles, followed closely by Information Technology, which was mentioned in 263 (23.01%) articles. It is evident that the core areas of research during this period were associated with the application of information technology (as opposed to ICTs, in its broad term) in the provision of information services in libraries. The occurrence of information society among the core subject terms is testimony of the hyping of the concept ‘infor- ration society’ in the 1990s (Technopolitcs Working Group, 2013). It should be acknowledged that one of the characteristics of an information society is the presence and application of infor ration technology as an enabler of accessing, processing or ‘organizing, storing dissemination or transfer and manipulation of information (Balan, 2013). The presence of electronic pub- Jications among the seven core subject (erms is not surprising as the e-publicatons are products of ICTs. The Internet seems to be the main enabler for library services during the 1998-2002 period fof study, given the prominence it received during. the 1998-2002 study period, Table 2 does not however explicitly reveal how the said ICTs were appled in KM but we ean conjure thatthe ICTs available in libraries during this period were largely used to provide Internet services to patrons as well as for the automation of services (see Bowers, 2018). ‘The 2003-2007 period saw the number of the core subject terms not only increase to 36 but also the dropping out of some of the core terms that existed in Bradford's core in 1998-2002, Table 3 provides the top 30 out of the 36 core subject terms, for purposes of data presentation, All but one subject term in Table 2 were dropped fom the lst of core subject terms in 2003-2007, implying that out of the 36 subject terms that constituted Bradford's core in 2003-2007, 35 were new. The core subject terms in 2003-2007 are largely associated with business/teade/ commerce and the management of organizations, We further note that no specific ICT is mentioned among the core subject terms. This may imply that all articles on ICTs were indexed under the headings Technology oF Information Technology or that no ICT-specific subject term was core in the period of study. Nevertheless, we mote that Management Information Systems, defined as a “set of procedures that collects (or retrieves), 5 0022) tps erg 01057/50899-022.01188.2ARTICLE Subject term F * ‘Subject term F *% ‘Management Information Systeme 3 18 Edveationalinovatons B 7 Decsion Making 3 150 CColege Teachers 25 ou Oniine Social Networks 48 var Information Technalogy 24 ora Electronie Commerce aa 135 Pable Administeation 24 07a Business Enterorses| 2 128 Teemology & Secely 2 oor Social Networks 2 138 Project Management 2 067 dustrial Management 39 18 Technology Acceptance Made! 2 ose High Technology 35 107 Organizational Change 2 064 Corperate Culture 2 oss Krowiedge Management Research ° 058 Technology 3 085, ‘Globalization 8 055 Data Securty 2 086 Business Communication » ose Management 2 oss Organ 2ational Behaviour v7 052 Organizations! Leaening 2 08s Dituson of Innovations u 052 “Teer of Knowledge 26 0.80 Socal Interaction 7 052 Intellectual Captal 8 O77 Innovation Management 6 043 Subject term F * Subject term F * Information Technology in Medicine 5 598 Tlectronie Commerce a 058 Decion Making 4% 198 Social Networks 2 os3 Dittusion of Innovations @ 190 CCompettive Advantage In Business 20 oss Higher Eduestion a 182 Organizational Change 9 ose Information Technology Industry 2 142 Knowledge Management Research oa Organizational Performance 30 133 Onin Social Networks 9 ose Medial Care 30 1B Tecnology 8 80 Telemedicine 26 us Data Anaysis Stare 0 07s. Business Enters 26 18 Industral Management 7 075. Structural Equation Modeling 25 um Theory Of Knowiedge 18 on Foancing of Research 2 02 Learning Strategies 6 a7 Public Setar 23 102 Information Technology Periodicals 8 on Public Aeministation 2 097 Cell Phones 5 056 Matherateal Mocels 2 093 Data Security 8 065 Project Nanagerrent 2 oss Medial Communication 5 os processes, stores, and disseminates information to. support fecision making and control” (Laudon and Laudon, 2003), is the only ICT-oriented term that appears in the core during the 2003-2007 period. Ils presence explains the occurrence of the ‘other terms which ae largely associated with the management of and decision making processes in organizations and. public fnitatons, Other information system-orienled terms thal appear in Table 3 include ‘electronic commerce, ‘educational innovations’ and Instructional Systems’ which are closely linked ‘with business and education. In terms of the application of ICTs in IKM between 2003 and 2007, the focus of Tesarch was centyed around management information systems and management (including. industrial management, public administration, enterprise resource plan- ning, business planning, organizational learning, and personnel ranagemen'). Organizational or corporate culture and plobaliz- tion are two terms that have become commonly visible in IKM literature (See for example, Rocha, 2021; Stinibash and Mohapatra, 2018). “Table 4 provides 30 of the 85 subject terms in the Bradford nucleus for the period 2008-2012. Like the previous time period (Ge. 2003-2007), this pesiod witnessed. some new additions while other subject terms dropped out. Out of the 36 subject terms that formed the care in 2003-2007, six did not featur in 2008-2012. These ate: Organization, Enterprise Resource Planning, Public Institutions, Business, and Management Science, The rest ofthe subject terms, numbering 29, featured {in the 2008-2012 Bradford's core, ‘The implication therefore is that, of the 85 core subject terms in Bradford's core of 2008-2012, 57 were new. Unlike the previous years, no one subject term was highly dominant in 2008-2012. The top ranking terms appeared in articles that were close in terms of their (Le. subject terms) frequency of occurrence in the databases. The period represented in Table 4 saw the dominance of issues revolving around management science, trade, education and medicine, which may also reflect the areas in which ICTs were applied in relation to IKM. The top ranking subject termes during the 2008-2012 time period were similar (0 ‘those occurring in the previous time period, albeit the slight differences in terms of their frequencies of occurrence Management Information Systems, Electronic Commerce, Business Enterprises, Industrial Management, and Organiza. tional Learning were among the top ranking terms that co- ‘occured in the two core zones of 2003-2007 and 2008-2012. Information Technology-based terms popped up in the latter period with Management Information Systems, Online Social Networks, Social Networks, High Technology, Technology, Information Technology, Technology & Society, and User Centred System Design appeating frequently in the ICT. literature. Furthermore, the occurrence of Technology Accep- tance Model and Diffusion of Innovations may reveal the studies’ orientation, namely the acceptance and diffusion of ICTs in management, education, trade, organizational learning, knowledge management and medical care, among others. 1085 0298176 tps //dlar/101087/s598.022-.0189.2 5ARTICLE IMANITIES AND Si Year of publication Core (re) Zone 14r9 Zone 2 (2) Zone 3 f9ss-2002 Te. of subjects 7 4 160 739) « : ‘aas7 47059 7438 2002-2007 No of subjects 35 139 52 208 « : 38611 39773 3.8402 2008-2012 Tho. of subjects 86 216 578 281 « : 31860 3.2064 22016 2012-2017 To of subject 39 ‘st 595 rae x : saris 39404 3.9395 ‘The Bradford’s core concepts or subject terms associated with 2003-2007 ICTs in IKM in 2013-2017 totalled 39, but only 30 of the subject tezms are presented in Table 5 for data clarity. One-third (that is, 13) of the subject terms were common in the care zones of the two time periods of 2008-2012 and 2013-2017. ICT-based terms included “information technology in medicine’, “diffusion of innovations, ‘information technology industry, ‘telemedicine’, “elecronic commerce’, ‘social networks, ‘online social networks’, “echnology’, ‘data analysis software’ and ‘cell phones’, The application of ICTs in the sub-field of knowledge management in this period largely mirrored the preceding period (ic, 2008-2012) whereby ICTs were used in medicine, decision sciences, business and commerce, and industrial management. This period witnessed the introduction of two types of ICTS, ‘namely the social media and cell phones as the key enablers of IKM, Does the disperson of ICTs subject terms in IKM research fit Bradford's law? In this section, we focus our attention on two aspects in order to determine whether or not the data fits Brad- ford's Law so as to gauge the suitability of the Law in the iden- lication of the core subject terms on ICTs as relleced in the IKM literature indexed in EBSCO's databases. In the first instance, we compute the Bradford mulkplier x in each zone by dividing the number of subject terms in the subsequent zone by the number in the previous zone, ic. the numerator excludes the nucleus value If the multiplier is similar to Bradford's constant as provided in the “Methods” section, then the data is said to fit Bradford's Law. ‘A comparison between the Bradford constant (ic. x) in Table 6 and Bradford's multiplier (ie. x) az shown in the “Methods” section, reveals that the two values are similar across all the zones. For instance, whereas the multiplier forthe time zone 1998-2002 is 4738191 (see the section "Methods"), the constant in the same time zone in Table 6 ranges between 4.7 and 49, When the values are rounded off to the nearest whole figure, they all equal to 5.0, therefore registering a perfect semblance, Inthe second instance, we determine the ratio of the number of subject terms in one Bradford zone to the number of the subsequent zone to determine whether or not the proportion of the data, in this study, fits Bradford's pattern, ie. Loa? Table 7 provides the proportional distribution of the valves, ‘expressed as ratios in the pattern of Bradford's expression of the law. ‘The proportional pattern of the distribution of the subject terms for each time period is therefore as follows: a. 1998-2002 1:4.8622.86:108.43 or 1:5.23:108, which is close to and can bbe expressed as 154525? The multiplier (n) for the period 1988-2002 is 5. 413.86:14:785675 oF 1:4:15'57, which can close to and can bbe expressed a5 Ils, The multiplier (n) forthe period 2003-2007 is 4 «2008-2012 413.19:10.21:52.69 or 1:3:10:38, which is close to and can be expressed as 1313233, The multiplier (n) for the period 2008-2012 is 3, a 2013-2017 413.87:15.26:60.10 or 1:415:60, which is close to and can be expressed as 14la2, The multiplier (n) for the period 2013-2017 is 4 Conclusion ‘This study sought to determine the nature of dispersion of the ICT subject terms in the IKM literature using Bradford's law, A. total of seven subject terms were considered as core in the period 1998 to 2002 while 2003-2007 yielded 36 subject terms in the core zone, The number of core subject terms for the next wo time zones of 2007-2012 and 2013-2017 were 86 and 39, respectively. The subject terms that formed cach core, from 1998-2017, have differed bath in number and constitution, except the periods 2008-2012 and 2013-2017, which largely consisted of simular concepts. The shifting ofthe subject terms that constituted. the core in each case (see Tables 2-5) may be an indication of an, evolving subject domain, change of research focus, inter- disciplinarity nature of the research areas of ICTs and KM, dynamic application of ICTs in information and knowledge ser vices, or dynamic indexing services. As the ICTs remain relevant and important tools for IKM, among other aspects that affect human lie euch as health, the pattern of distibution of subject terms in the core zones is likely to persist in research, New concepts wil continue emerging while others move from the core to peripheral zones, The application of ICTs in information and knowledge management largely occurs in the fields of medicine, business and commerce, education and training, decision sciences and industrial management as well as information resources, management ‘The proportional distribution of subject terms reveals that the number of subject terms in each Bradford group is proportional to Ininty?, Tables 6 and 7 provide Bradford's constant and multiplier in each time period, respectively. We aver thatthe data, in this study fits the Bradford's Law and therefore the law can be used to not only determine the number of ICTs subject terms that are core IKM research but also identify the core subject terms in a specific research area, It will be however interesting to conduct the same study using different subject domains as case studies to assess the applicability of the law. Such an exploration will pro- vide adequate evidence to make informed conclusions on the application of the law in assessing other units besides the dis pefsion of the literature in journal, 105 | @onmyser6 ip //e'ar/201057/<9599.072-0008.2ARTICLE Year of publication Gore tre) ___Zone Ve) __Zone 2G) __Zone 3) _Bradfor's multiplier f9ss-2002 Ne ofsubiects 7 34 160 758 5 Propaction 1 436 2238 08.03 2003-2007 Novel subjects 36 39 532 2043 4 Propertion 1 3.86 vas 5675 2008-2012 No.of subjects 86 28 378 281 2 Propestion 1 318 wo21 3268 2012-2017 Novefsubects 39 is 595 page 4 Propestion 1 387 1528 6010 Implications of the study on information practice. The impli- ‘ation of the aplication of Bradford's Iw n information practice is well documented. Qiu etal (2017) have argued that the law bas both theoretical and practical applications. The law's application in practice is diverse and includes the determination of core journal, literature search, investigation of monograph distbu- tion, maintenance of dynamic collection, measurement of the integrity of search tools, guiding users to use journals, guiding the ‘work of journal subscription (Qiu et al, 2017) as well a a tool in Aeveloping information systems (Von Unger Sternberg, 2000) ‘The current study has demonstrated a. possible area and rmanner in which Bradford's law can be applied in practice. The application of Bradiord’s law in subject analysis may assist in ‘curriculum development, thesaurus ‘construction, and subject ‘organization and description inthe area of ICTs as they relate to IKM. Other areas of application would be the development of an information system a8 opined by Von Ungern Sternberg (2000) as well as iterate research, and collection development ae noted by Qi et ab (2027). 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Atom Doe Math Ling 46(2)2-117 | 2002}9176 itos//dar/t01087/se598.072-.0188.2 7ARTICLE t Acknowledgements ‘Avevsinn af hs paper speed nthe procera f the Internal Sey or ‘Sears a nore ‘Author contributions ‘manag ladng os pation i the ea “ Competing interests The aos dee no competing ners Ethical approval Informed consent This ate des net cota any stds wth eran papa permed by ay of the stor anda vu hte te no ed foc auc te ok infra ene ‘Additional information ‘Sopplemeatary information The ene verses contin plementary mater aval a teat or 0.057599 0220189 2 Ccrepondence and requ fo ail shold be addr te Onwoye Boe ‘nye or Denis N- Ochoa apne and permiion infection i wale tpt soils EL ore es 8 ae ha nde 4 ve none pttin, than and reproduction nay edi ofan lang a You ge ‘prep cedt to aon eth) td the muce, rvide sak tre reve inetd ethervr in «cred in othe mater. 1 ili ot eed inthe ‘eclaion ot excrd the pred, ou wil rd oon prmiien det fom The Athos 2002 (002238008 / og NO10S1/2159.022.0008-2