Unraveling the relations of other disciplines with information science: evaluation from an international perspective

This article aimed to investigate in the scientific literature the use of knowledge produced by international information science by researchers from other scientific areas. The research was conducted in two stages. The data analyzed in the first stage came from a study of citations to articles in the area of information science from the international sphere published between 1997 and 2016. Web of Science was used to gather this data. In the second stage, aiming to determine the type of relationship (multi, inter or transdisciplinary) established between citations from other disciplines and information science, a quantitative analysis was performed in a convenience non-probabilistic sample of 15% of the citations of other disciplines to works from international information science identified in the first stage. Furthermore, in the sample used in the second stage, for works of citations that showed properties indicating that research was built on the basis of an interdisciplinary relationship, a qualitative analysis was performed to determine if they were uni, inter, multi or transdisciplinary in nature. As a main result it should be highlighted that there was a growing trend of citations of international information science papers by other scientific areas. This fact may demonstrate that mondial information science has advanced theoretically and methodologically in the last 20 years. Additionally, results show an expressive use of mondial information science knowledge by the other areas of knowledge which could indicate a potential interdisciplinary relationship of other disciplines with international information science. However, this potential interdisciplinary relationship was not confirmed by the quantitative and qualitative analysis performed in the second stage of the research.