Mapping of crowdsourcing research: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

This study presented a bibliometric examination of the crowdsourcing publications. The objective of this study is to bibliometrically examine the publications related to crowdsourcing in the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science. A systematic search has been carried out for publications between 2008 and 2017. The parameters analysed included document type, language, most prolific journal, leading countries/territories, institutions and authors in terms of total publications, independent publications, collaborative publications, first authors, corresponding authors and single authors. Highly cited articles and the future direction of hot topics are also investigated. 81 per cent of the total publications are articles. English remains the dominant language and accounted for nearly 100 per cent of the total output. The USA, China and the UK produced 80 per cent of total production. PLOS One was leading journal in terms of total output and total citation till 2016. It was found that 1459 articles, including 1347 first authors, 1443 corresponding authors and 79 single authors, were published by 6973 authors. Fritz Steffen and See Linda were the most prolific authors. This paper will be useful for researchers to know the current trends and achievements of crowd-sourcing research.