Social network analysis as a methodology for research in information metric studies. The case of the journal Actualidades Investigativas en Educación

Abstract

Research that includes metric studies and network analysis in its methodology has been evolving over time within the international scientific community, and Costa Rica is no exception. The objective of this research was to learn about the collaborative networks with which the authors of the journal Actualidades Investigativas en Educación work during the period 2001-2019, in order to analyze their evolution. This experience was carried out from a quantitative methodology from the Analysis of Social Networks (ARS) and Metric Studies of Information (EMI), specifically the degree and mediation and scientific collaboration indicators respectively. Some interesting results reveal that the amount of academic production is not always related to the level of mediation of an author; that the journal does not have a static or constant collaboration network in its publication dynamics; that the geographical factor was not an impediment to collaboration between countries. In addition, the first 20 nodes were identified as having a higher value in degree and mediation, being women through whom most of the information flows in the general network. It is concluded that collaborative network analyses together with metric studies are an excellent combination to know the development, evolution and progress in terms of academic collaboration within a scientific journal.