Linked Data: A Scientometrics Assessment of Global Publications Output During 1996-2019.

The paper studied global research output (6700 publications) in the subfield "Linked Data", indexed in Scopus database during 1996-19, with a focus on the distribution of publications and collaborative linkages across major countries, organizations, authors, journals and disciplines. Linked Data global research output registered a 59.04% annual average growth rate and averaged to 7.21 citations per paper in 24 years. The study identified and analyzed the top 15 countries, 30 top organizations, 30 authors and the top 20 journals. The top 15 countries account for more than 100% share of global publications and citations during this period. The 2572 organizations and 6959 authors participated in global research on "Linked Data" research. The paper further provides an insight into the qualitative performance of the "Linked Data" sub-field, besides analyzing the distribution of publications across sub-fields and characteristics of high-cited research and also identifies important media of communications. The National University of Ireland and the University of Leipzig, Germany (with 286 and 194 papers each) have been the most productive organizations. The University of Mannheim, Germany (22.08 and 3.06) and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany (21.93 and 3.04) have been the most impactful organizations. E. Mannens (109 papers) and R. Verborgh (109 papers) have been productive authors. C. Bizer (193.19 and 26.79) and S. Hellmann (84.71 and 11.75) have been the most impactful authors. Semantic Web (with 125 papers), Journal of Web Semantics (72 papers) and International Journal of Semantic Web & Information Systems (42 papers), have been the topmost productive journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]