Algorithm for Applying Statistics and Scientometric Analysis to Identify Innovative Areas of Focus in Scientific Knowledge in Labour Economics

Abstract

The modern Digital Universe changes and expands at a speed that every two years double the amount of data. It leads to a situation when huge accumulated flows of information can no longer be covered by traditional scientific search and built into a relevant scientific research framework. The authors argue that there is a need for using modern statistics and scientometric application packages for solving research tasks in the primary trends of the information economy. The article presents a comparative analysis of various scientometric programs and describes a new approach to identifying and visualizing patterns and transient regularities in the scientific literature on the basis of a study of global publication flows in the last 25 years in the subject area of «labour economics» represented in the Web of Science. The authors conceptualize and visualize scientific domain of «labour economics» within the framework of the timing diagram of the evolution of research fronts. They introduce the search algorithm for active research fronts in the global information flow using CiteSpace V.0 and highlight the most critical trends and principal points of research clusters for the past decade on labour economics and its core studies. The paper determines most perspective citation spikes that could potentially become the center of new scientific knowledge in this area and outlines opportunities for future research.