A simple method to map an institutional research landscape using cytoscape

Abstract

Research institutions are organizations that are traditionally composed of a number of researchers either working independently or as part of small clusters (such as research groups) within the institute. While there are a number of methods to evaluate the contribution of individuals to the overall research productivity of an institute, these methods tend to be relatively static, and may fail to accurately represent the nature of the institution. This study describes the application of a well established biological interaction program, Cytoscape, to allow visualization of the interaction of the individual researchers and show that by weighting the information with collaborative link strengths and output data or citation data, it is able to produce a picture of the 'research landscape' of an institution. The data can be easily updated and can provide a continual picture of the activity of a research institute or other organization. In particular this system is adaptable to use without subscription to potentially expensive databases which may be unavailable to workers in smaller institutions or those in developing nations.