Abstract
According to an American diction, “there are as many ways to skin a cat as there are people on earth.” This proposition probably also holds true for “skinning” databases. The British mathematician and writer Lewis Carroll clearly identified the upper limit in “skinning” a database by saying that the “best” map of a terrain is as large as the terrain itself, and indeed is the terrain itself. Somewhere between this “best map” and a simple list of article titles along with author names for articles in a documentary database there are “optimal” solutions such as “cognitive maps” produced by scientometric analysis.
Another version of this paper will appear in the forth-coming issue of “Current Sociology” on AIDS research. The results concerning the FORIS database were first presented at the International Social Science Methodology Conference organized in Trento by the University of Trento and the Research Committee Logic and Methodology (RC33) of the International Sociological Association on 22–26 June 1992. This version correspondends mostly to a paper presented at the “Deutscher Soziologentag” 1992.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References and Additional Material
Bastide, F.; Courtial, J.-P.; Callon, M., 1989: The Use of Review Articles in the Analysis of a Research Area, Scientometrics, Vol. 15, Nos. 5–6, pp. 535–562
Cardine, P.; Muller, E.; Turner, W. A., 1992: Une Station de lecture des contenus documentaires pour la veille scientifique et technique, Colloque ADEST, Scientométrie en action, 1–2 June 1992, Paris
Chartron, G.; Degenne, A.; Lebeaux, M.-O.; Mounier, L., 1990: Images de la recherche sociologique actuelle, Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, No. 28, pp. 19–40
Courtial, J.-P., 1989: Qualitative Models, Quantitative Tools and Network Analysis, Scientometrics, Vol. 15, Nos. 5–6, pp. 527–534
Courtial, J.-P.; Juan, J., 1986: L’Obtention de cartes stratégiques de la recherche scientifique à partir de l’analyse des mots associés dans les fichiers documentaires, Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, No. 12, pp. 22–38
Garfield, E., 1979: Citation Indexing: Its Theory and Application in Science, Technology and Humanities, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Law, J.; Bailin, S.; Courtial, J.-P.; Whittaker, J., 1988: Policy and the Mapping of Scientific Change. A Co-word Analysis of Research into Environmental Acidification, Scientometrics, Vol. 14, Nos. 3–4, pp. 251–264
Michelet, B., 1988: L’Analyse des associations, thèse de doctorat, Université Paris VII
Reinert, M., 1990: ALCESTE–Une méthodologie d’analyse des données textuelles et une application: Aurélia de Gérard de Nerval, Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, No. 26, pp. 24–54
Salem, A., 1987: Le Lexicloud, Fontenay-Saint Cloud, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 101 pp
Salton, G.; McGill, M. J., 1983: Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval, International Student Editions, McGraw Hill
Small, H.; Greenlee, E., 1990: A Co-Citation Study of AIDS Research, in Christine L. Borgman, Ed. Scholarly Communications and Bibliometrics, Sage, pp. 166–193
Sociologie francaise et francophone, annuaire 1988, 1988, Paris, Editions du CNRS
Teil, G., 1990: CANDIDE: Software for Mapping Lexical Networks Based on Large Amounts of Data, Paris, Ecole des Mines de Paris
Turner, W. A.; Michelet, B.; Courtial, J.-P., 1990: Scientific and Technological Information Banks for the Network Management of Research, Research Policy, Elsevier–North Holland, Vol. 19, pp. 467–475
Van Meter, K.; Mounier, L.; Chartron, G.; Reinert, M., 1991: Multimethod Analysis: Official Biographies of Members of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party, Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, No. 33, pp. 20–37
Vinck, D. (ed.), 1991: Gestion de la recherche: nouveaux problèmes, nouveaux outils, Brussels, De Boeck
White, H. D.; McCain, K. W., 1989: Bibliometrics, Annual Review of Information, Science and Technology, Vol. 24, p. 164
Whittaker, J., 1989: Creativity and Conformity in Science: Titles, Keywords and Co-word Analysis, Social Studies of Science, London, Sage, Vol. 19, pp. 473–496
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Westdeutscher Verlag GmbH, Opladen
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van Meter, K.M., Turner, W.A. (1994). Cognitive Mapping: The German FORIS Database and Sociological Abstracts’ Aids Research. In: Best, H., Endres-Niggemeyer, B., Herfurth, M., Ohly, H.P. (eds) Informations- und Wissensverarbeitung in den Sozialwissenschaften. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-93603-5_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-93603-5_16
Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
Print ISBN: 978-3-531-12501-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-322-93603-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive