Research Article Patterns of Research Productivity in the Virtual Worlds Literature: A Bibliometric Approach

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the internet has provided a much more dynamic platform, becoming more visual and allowing users to interact with each other in communities and share information in real time. The new Internet is a social media, and online communities are taking on a new dimension, quite literally, in the form of immersive 3D virtual worlds, such as such as Active Worlds, OSGrid, and Second Life. Surprisingly, 80 % of active internet users have a registered account in virtual worlds which are playing an increasingly important role in the lives of many adults, teens, and children. Indeed, virtual worlds are believed to have implications that go beyond how we play, to also include how we buy, work, and learn. In recent years there has been increased behavioral research in virtual reality and virtual worlds. As a result, the subject of virtual world has become a major research area in recent years. To shed light on virtual worlds ’ trends, and contributions, a historical review and Bibliometric analysis are included in this research. The Bibliometric analytical technique was used to examine this topic in SSCI journals from 1991 through 2011. Also, the study investigated whether author productivity conformed to Lotka’s Law, to understand author distributions within the field of virtual worlds and to elucidate the distributions of the core authors