A comparative study of author co-citation analysis methods

Author Co-citation Analysis (ACA) uses the oeuvres of authors as units of analysis and derives meaningful connections between authors from the frequencies of their works being cited together. It has been shown that ACA is helpful in revealing the intellectual structure of a discipline or field [1]. Over the years, many ACA methods have been developed [2]. This study intends to compare five kinds of ACA methods on a same co-citation dataset. Research questions include: Will there be consistency in the results of the different ACA methods? How to compare different ways of author cocitation analysis and visualization