Bibliometric indicators of interdisciplinarity: the potential of the Leinster–Cobbold diversity indices to study disciplinary diversity

Abstract

In bibliometrics, interdisciplinarity is often measured in terms of the "diversity" of research areas in the references that an article cites. The standard indicators used are borrowed mostly from other research areas, notably from ecology (biodiversity measures) and economics (concentration measures). This paper argues that while the measures used in biodiversity research have evolved over time, the interdisciplinarity indicators used in bibliometrics can be mapped to a subset of biodiversity measures from the first and second generations. We discuss the third generation of biodiversity measures and especially the Leinster---Cobbold diversity indices (LCDiv) (Leinster and Cobbold in Ecology 93(3):477---489, 2012). We present a case study based on a previously published dataset of interdisciplinarity study in the field of bio-nano science (Rafols and Meyer in Scientometrics 82(2):263---287, 2010). We replicate the findings of this study to show that the various interdisciplinarity measures are in fact special cases of the LCDiv. The paper discusses some interesting properties of the LCDiv which make them more appealing in the study of disciplinary diversity than the standard interdisciplinary diversity indicators.