**2. The thematic-approach based analysis of scientific fields of study**

Research in Social Sciences has lately changed its presentation, that is, with the publication formats used or association strategies between authors and institutions. Bibliometric research has mostly focused its interest on the productions indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus [2, 3], the internationalization of Social Sciences [4], the collaboration between authors and institutions [5–9] i.a. Bibliometric studies have made possible the characterization of the Social Sciences researchers' scientific production, nevertheless, works surrounding thematic approaches analysis in this field of knowledge are still a proposal in development that has been evolving from the perspective of analysis and textual data visualization.

Studies with the goal to identify the structure of science are more common every day, seeking to understand areas of knowledge's organization systems, relevant topics and research agenda. In other words, one of the most important tasks in scientometrics is the decomposition of scientific literature into disciplinary and sub-disciplinary structures [10]. This task is highly complex because it requires large volumes of information from which it is only possible to identify patterns through the use of computational tools [11].

The development of methods based on the usage of research production network metrics has been remarkably useful in the mapping construction. These studies have addressed diverse topics such as science interdisciplinary level [12], the multi-centric organization of basic sciences' structure with bidirectional information flux in disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry or Medicine [13], the identification of edge and central concepts within a scientific discipline [14], the comparison of the different disciplines' topological organization of quotation networks [15], the structural precision of the scientific panorama according to the size, similarities and interconnection among the different areas of science [16] i.a.

### **2.1. Social networks analysis and co-words method**

Science maps or structures analyses also include the revision of scientific production's semantic components as an identification mechanism of a particular area's relevant topic of study. For these purposes, the use of methods that take advantage of the textual resources and techniques of documentary summary has grown [15]. A useful tool that facilitates the identification of approaches and thematic trends in the different knowledge fields is the usage of metrics derived from text networks that define the interconnection of words or semantic fragments.

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a common-used method in which the mapping procedures of terms' network structure [17] are made considering the relative importance of the concepts, the relational density level between them, that is, real connections given within all the possible connections, and the proximity among the different semantic units considered inside the networks.

Another possibility lies in the identification of clusters, from which the aggrupation of words according to its attraction is conformed, which gives rise to textual regions of high or low frequency where words are common or rare respectively [18].

Based on these analyses, knowledge maps are generated, they are built from the identification of co-occurrence in terms or words. This is a content analysis technique that eases the analysis of relations emerging within the ideas from a specific text [19, 20]. In the analysis, main topics from a scientific area are extracted and co-related to determine bonds between them [21] allowing the construction of hierarchies to define central research problems and (smaller) auxiliary areas [22].

### **2.2. Thematic approaches and contextualization of social problems**

example, psychology applies quantitative research methods that belong to "hard sciences" through which it associates variables, predicts or explains human behavior. But also, psychology develops studies with qualitative approaches focused on the comprehension of the meaning around social and individual phenomena. Both of the approaches imply clearly differentiated theoretical corpora. Educational field's research is predominantly qualitative [1],

In summary, the study of Social Sciences is related to the variance of its object of study, which provides a complex, diverse and variable scenario of topics. For each scientific discipline, recognizing such topics means a significant contribution in the delimitation of the field of study, approaches posed or connections between investigative and theoretical proposals; it also helps researchers to determine which areas of work to explore or deepen and whom to

**2. The thematic-approach based analysis of scientific fields of study**

been evolving from the perspective of analysis and textual data visualization.

possible to identify patterns through the use of computational tools [11].

ties and interconnection among the different areas of science [16] i.a.

**2.1. Social networks analysis and co-words method**

Research in Social Sciences has lately changed its presentation, that is, with the publication formats used or association strategies between authors and institutions. Bibliometric research has mostly focused its interest on the productions indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus [2, 3], the internationalization of Social Sciences [4], the collaboration between authors and institutions [5–9] i.a. Bibliometric studies have made possible the characterization of the Social Sciences researchers' scientific production, nevertheless, works surrounding thematic approaches analysis in this field of knowledge are still a proposal in development that has

Studies with the goal to identify the structure of science are more common every day, seeking to understand areas of knowledge's organization systems, relevant topics and research agenda. In other words, one of the most important tasks in scientometrics is the decomposition of scientific literature into disciplinary and sub-disciplinary structures [10]. This task is highly complex because it requires large volumes of information from which it is only

The development of methods based on the usage of research production network metrics has been remarkably useful in the mapping construction. These studies have addressed diverse topics such as science interdisciplinary level [12], the multi-centric organization of basic sciences' structure with bidirectional information flux in disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry or Medicine [13], the identification of edge and central concepts within a scientific discipline [14], the comparison of the different disciplines' topological organization of quotation networks [15], the structural precision of the scientific panorama according to the size, similari-

Science maps or structures analyses also include the revision of scientific production's semantic components as an identification mechanism of a particular area's relevant topic of study.

which also happens in Laws and Political sciences.

146 Data Mining

cooperate with depending on the common interests.

An important premise given by the SNA is the dynamic nature of the networks, which means that they can be structurally transformed when influenced by diverse variables [23]. For this reason, knowledge maps or networks are understood as dynamic structures, which contents are adjusted to the evaluation period and the immediate reality that affects the scientific work.

This is an especially important consideration in Social Sciences, given that social's relative nature is a feature inherent to the object of study of the disciplines that deal with these phenomena, therefore, the problems that social research addresses have a high contextual value [24, 25]. In general, the properties of scientific production are different between authors in the central region (North America & EU) and authors from peripheral scenarios as in the case of Latin-America [26, 27], this is noticeable in type of productions generated [28, 29] (central region has a higher number of works indexed in WoS and Scopus while peripheral area has preferences in local sources), as in the contents, themes of predilection and the significance value that the regional context gives to the studied problems.

This leads the social scientist to adjust the researched themes to the main problems of his immediate context [30, 27], which means that the networks of the thematic field can be substantially different depending on the social reality and the geographic position of the researchers. The study of meaning networks helps to understand those local-weighted differences defining the connections that facilitate the instauration of specific thematic axes in a field of knowledge.

This particular study applied the SNA fundamentals and the co-words method to identify the keyword networks in seven disciplines of the Social Sciences in Colombia. The results shared are part of a wider scientometric project that includes collaboration networks between authors and institutions and the assessment of research groups' scientific quality.
