The Structure and Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 183

Fig. 5.15 A Pathfinder network of 121 information science authors based on raw co-citation
counts (Reproduced from White 2003 )

5.3.2.2 Generalized Similarity Analysis

Generalized Similarity Analysis (GSA) is a generic framework for structuring and
visualizing distributed hypermedia resources (Chen 1997a , 1998 ). See Chap. 4 for
a detailed discussion. GSA uses Pathfinder networks to achieve an improved clarity
of a generic network. John Leggett of Texas A&M was a keynote speaker at the
8th ACM Hypertext conference in Pittsburgh and he was talking about “camps”
in hypertext research and “runners” between these invisible camps: who they are
and where they are now. Inspired by White and McCain's author co-citation maps
and John Leggett's thought-provoking keynote speech, we were able to pull things
together by applying GSA to ACA. Leslie Carr at the University of Southampton
provided me with the citation data for the ACM Hypertext conference series.
We presented a Pathfinder-powered visualization of the co-citation networks of
hypertext research at the 9th ACM Hypertext conference at Darmstadt in Germany
in 1999. Since then, we have developed a systematic and consistent framework
for ACA and document co-citation analysis (DCA) to accommodate Pathfinder
networks side-by-side with traditional dimensionality reduction techniques such
as MDS and PCA, and working with information visualization techniques such
as animation, color mapping, and three-dimensional landscaping. By 2001, we
consolidated the methodology into a four-step procedure for domain visualization
(Chen and Paul 2001 ). Having created global thematic landscapes of a subject