VOSviewer-assisted Science Mapping
Also known as: VOSviewer science mapping, bibliometric science mapping with VOSviewer, VOS-based science mapping, VOSviewer network mapping
VOSviewer-assisted science mapping uses the VOSviewer software — developed at Leiden University — to construct and visualize bibliometric networks from publication metadata. It applies the VOS (Visualization of Similarities) mapping technique to reveal intellectual structures in a research field: co-authorship networks, citation landscapes, keyword clusters, and thematic frontiers, all rendered as interactive, color-coded network maps that expose how concepts, authors, and journals are relationally positioned within a discipline.
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When to use it
Use VOSviewer-assisted science mapping when you need a bird's-eye view of an entire research field or a large literature: to identify the most influential authors, journals, or papers; to trace the intellectual structure and evolution of a topic; or to locate under-explored gaps for a future research agenda. It is well suited to the opening stage of a systematic or scoping review, where it helps justify the review scope and identify landmark works. The method requires at least a few hundred bibliographic records to yield interpretable clusters — with fewer than 50 records the network is too sparse to be meaningful. Do not use it when you need causal inference, when your corpus is very small, or when you need to synthesize the content of findings rather than map the structure of the literature; qualitative meta-synthesis or narrative review are better choices in those cases.
Strengths & limitations
- Handles very large corpora (thousands to tens of thousands of records) that cannot be reviewed manually in a reasonable timeframe.
- Produces visually intuitive, reproducible maps that communicate the intellectual structure of a field at a glance.
- Freely available software with a stable GUI requiring no programming skills, lowering the barrier to rigorous bibliometric analysis.
- Supports multiple network types (co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence, citation, bibliographic coupling, co-citation) from the same dataset, enabling multi-angle analysis.
- Integrated overlay visualization allows temporal and citation-impact layers to be superimposed on the structural map.
- Widely cited and methodologically transparent, making VOSviewer-produced maps a recognized and reproducible output for peer-reviewed publication.
- Results depend entirely on the completeness and quality of the source database; literature not indexed in Web of Science or Scopus is invisible to the map.
- Keyword normalization requires manual effort — synonyms, abbreviations, and spelling variants must be merged before analysis or clusters will be artificially fragmented.
- The VOS spatial layout reflects similarity, not causation; the map describes co-occurrence patterns, not why topics are related or how one idea led to another.
- Very recent publications are underrepresented because they have had less time to accumulate citations, making the map systematically biased toward older, more-cited work.
- Cluster labels must be assigned by the researcher through qualitative interpretation — the software identifies groups of items but does not name the themes they represent.
Frequently asked
What databases work with VOSviewer?
VOSviewer accepts exports from Web of Science (plain text or tab-delimited), Scopus (CSV), PubMed (XML or NBIB), Dimensions (CSV), and several other sources, as well as RIS files from any database that produces them. The choice of database affects coverage: Web of Science and Scopus are most commonly used for general science mapping because they provide structured reference lists needed for citation-based networks.
How many records do I need for a meaningful map?
There is no hard minimum, but a corpus of at least 200-300 records is generally needed to produce clusters with enough items to be interpretable. Below 50 records the network is too sparse for clustering to be meaningful. For keyword co-occurrence networks, each keyword must meet a minimum occurrence threshold (often 5 or 10) to appear; very small corpora will have few qualifying keywords.
Is VOSviewer suitable for qualitative content synthesis?
No. VOSviewer maps the structural relationships among publications based on metadata (keywords, citations, authorship) — it does not read or synthesize the substantive content of findings. For content synthesis, qualitative meta-synthesis, narrative review, or thematic analysis of selected papers is required. VOSviewer is best used to scope the field before deeper reading, not to replace it.
How do I report VOSviewer-assisted science mapping in a journal article?
Report the search string, database(s), date of search, total records retrieved, number of records retained after screening, minimum thresholds applied, VOSviewer version, and the type of network constructed. Include an exported network visualization as a figure and a table of the largest clusters with representative items. Describe the interpretation process explicitly so readers understand how cluster labels were assigned.
What is the difference between co-authorship and bibliographic coupling networks in VOSviewer?
A co-authorship network connects researchers who have published together, revealing collaboration communities. A bibliographic coupling network connects papers that share references, revealing thematic similarity based on what the papers cite — two papers are coupled even if they never cite each other directly. Bibliographic coupling is preferred for mapping the current research front because it does not require papers to have been cited yet.
Sources
- van Eck, N.J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3 ↗
- van Eck, N.J., & Waltman, L. (2014). Visualizing bibliometric networks. In Y. Ding, R. Rousseau, & D. Wolfram (Eds.), Measuring scholarly impact (pp. 285–320). Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-10377-8_13 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). VOSviewer-assisted Science Mapping. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/scientometrics/vosviewer-assisted-science-mapping
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Bibliographic CouplingBibliometrics↔ compare
- Bibliometric AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare
- Co-Citation AnalysisBibliometrics↔ compare
- Co-word AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare
- Scientometric AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare
- Systematic Literature ReviewScientometrics↔ compare