Openness and information technology: a bibliometric analysis of literature production

Abstract

Purpose Research in the field of openness has become very broad and, unfortunately, also opaque. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to analyse and map the trends by applying bibliometric tools to the scientific literature published between 1990 and 2015, for descriptive bibliometric analysis, and 2011 to 2015, for content analysis. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis was used to identify document types, most prolific institutions, countries, source titles and Web of Science categories in the field of openness. Furthermore, bibliometric mapping was performed to discover country and institutional cooperation networks and to be able to understand funding opportunities for openness and information technology research. Additionally, with content analysis, scientific landscape was produced with most prolific terms and their chronological evolution through time. Findings The first information sources were published in 1990, and production was steady until 1998. After that period, the growth becomes exponential for the total number of information sources, as well as articles and proceedings papers, with a slight decrease in growth between 2009 and 2011. Descriptive bibliometric analysis showed that the most productive countries were the USA, the UK, Germany, China, Italy and Spain. Originality/value This paper presents the first holistic bibliometric analysis of the literature production concerning openness in relation to information and communication technology which helps researchers in the field to better understand the relations between themes and outsiders to get an overview of the openness scientific landscape.