Using Citation Network Analysis in Educational Technology

Abstract

Previous reviews in the field of Educational Technology (ET) have revealed some publication patterns according to authors, institutions, and affiliations. However, those previous reviews focused only on the rankings of individual authors and institutions, and did not provide qualitative details on relations and networks of scholars and scholarly works. This insufficient landscape of the field has led the authors to become interested in discovering the relational patterns and network attributes in the scholarly works through a citation network analysis. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to introduce a citation network analysis in ET to promote interdisciplinary collaboration with neighboring fields. The distinctive features of citation network analysis derive from the utilization of a social network analysis approach to examining relational and network attributes in the citation data. The comparison of the citation network analysis of ET to that of human performance technology (HPT) and human resource development (HRD) fields are discussed and implications are elaborated for future research.