Abstract
The structure of scientific collaboration networks is investigated. Two scientists are considered connected if they have authored a paper together and explicit networks of such connections are constructed by using data drawn from a number of databases, including MEDLINE (biomedical research), the Los Alamos e-Print Archive (physics), and NCSTRL (computer science). I show that these collaboration networks form “small worlds,” in which randomly chosen pairs of scientists are typically separated by only a short path of intermediate acquaintances. I further give results for mean and distribution of numbers of collaborators of authors, demonstrate the presence of clustering in the networks, and highlight a number of apparent differences in the patterns of collaboration between the fields studied.
Keywords
Path (computing)Computer scienceCluster analysisNetwork scienceData scienceComplex networkWorld Wide WebArtificial intelligenceComputer network
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Publication Info
- Year
- 2001
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 404-409
- Citations
- 4343
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
M. E. J. Newman
(2001).
The structure of scientific collaboration networks.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 98
(2)
, 404-409.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.98.2.404
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1073/pnas.98.2.404