A scientometric study and social network analysis of Donald E. Knuth.

• Main Author: Tan, Yoke Lin.
• Other Authors: Lee Chu Keong
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Library and information science; DRNTU::Library and information science::Knowledge management; DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social structure; DRNTU::Library and information science::Libraries::Knowledge management; DRNTU::Science::General::History; DRNTU::Science::General::Social aspects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46490
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The main objective of this dissertation is to establish an understanding of Donald E. Knuth's publication and collaboration profiles through the study of his publication works. Two analysis techniques - Scientometric and Social Network Analysis were applied on his published works over a period of 54 years (1957-2011). His 542 published works, as of June 2011, comprised of 37 books, 161 papers, 6 patents, 276 other publications (included numerous mathematical problems and solutions submitted to American Mathematical Monthly, forewords, errata and interview transcripts) and 62 reports of limited circulations. Through the scientometric analysis, it was found that Knuth has published 50% of his total publications by 1985 and has an average of 10.03 publications per year. His citation half-life values for his top 5 publications are between 3.15 to 5.22 years, indicating the high relevance of his publications to this date. His publications are dominated by single authorship with 77.5% of his works done in solitude, 16.6% with 1 co-author and only 5.9% with 2 or more co-authors. His collaboration profile is further illustrated by the second analysis technique using co-authors sociograms. The size of his author-to-author sociogram (i.e. number of co-authors) showed that he has collaborated with 114 authors in total. His papers saw the most collaboration with 69 authors. The growth of the sociogram size over 5 different period of analysis showed that he has collaborated (or co-authored) the most in published papers in his earlier years before 1980. There was a dip in collaboration from year 2000 onwards.