Citation cascade and the evolution of topic relevance

Abstract

Citation analysis, as a tool for quantitative studies of science, has long emphasized direct citation relations, leaving indirect or high‐order citations overlooked. However, a series of early and recent studies demonstrate the existence of indirect and continuous citation impact across generations. Adding to the literature on high‐order citations, we introduce the concept of a citation cascade: the constitution of a series of subsequent citing events initiated by a certain publication. We investigate this citation structure by analyzing more than 450,000 articles and over 6 million citation relations. We show that citation impact exists not only within the three generations documented in prior research but also in much further generations. Still, our experimental results indicate that two to four generations are generally adequate to trace a work's scientific impact. We also explore specific structural properties—such as depth, width, structural virality, and size—which account for differences among individual citation cascades. Finally, we find evidence that it is more important for a scientific work to inspire trans‐domain (or indirectly related domain) works than to receive only intradomain recognition in order to achieve high impact. Our methods and findings can serve as a new tool for scientific evaluation and the modeling of scientific history.

Unveiling the Research Landscape of Sustainable Development Goals and Their Inclusion in Higher Education Institutions and Research Centers: Major Trends in 2000–2017

“…Considering the methodological limitations described above, future methodological improvements should take into account the possibility of characterizing not only the directly cited/citing publications of M&SDGs, but also other citation layers (e.g., 2nd, 3 rd , or more-also known as citation cascades- Min et al, 2020) in the expansion of the core set of publications. The use of citation cascades would allow the introduction of a more fluid approach (in which a much larger set of scientific publications may be considered regarding their citation proximity to the core set), in contrast with the binary approach (i.e., publication are M&SDGs-related or not) used in this study.…”

Predicting Scientific Breakthroughs Based on Structural Dynamic of Citation Cascades

“…Among them, citation cascades have become a prominent one in recent years [5,6,35]. It is utilized for various tasks such as technology forecasting [2], agent knowledge structure [36] or intelligence structure [37], impact evaluation [38], scientific evaluation [39], topic detection or hot spot prediction [6], and cascade information exploration in social media [40]. A typical example of citation cascades is illustrated in Figure 2B.…”

“…Among them, there is one kind of complex network, the citation cascades [5], showing power in breakthrough predictions. Citation cascades refer to a type of citation structure that involves the constitution of a series of subsequent citing events initiated by a focus paper (more details are in the reference [6]). Using the citing cascades, Min et al [2] predicted the Nobel Prize-winning papers based on their topological metrics and achieved a performance that exceeded prior methods.…”

A Network-Graph Based IT Artifact Aiding the Theory Building Process

“…Network graphs were also used in heavily cited work mapping the development of DNA theory [17]. Contemporary examples expand on the scope, scale, and accessibility of these techniques across multiple scientific domains [18,19]. Recent work has also provided IS researchers with an interactive tool, RelPath, to explore citation networks and citation paths [20].…”