Title

Innovation Diffusion in Geographic Information Science Research

Document Type

Thesis

Comments


Presented to the Graduate Council of Texas State University–San Marcos in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science, June 2008.

Committee Members Approved:
Dr. Yongmei Lu, Chair
Dr. Sven Fuhrmann
Dr. Osvaldo Muniz

Approved:
J. Michael Willoughby, Dean of the Graduate College

Abstract

Geographic Information Science (GIS) researchers analyze digital data to identify spatial patterns quantitatively. Following a similar approach, this thesis research reveals the diffusion dynamics of GIS research through analyzing the field's publications. A total of 985 GIS journal articles published between 1997 and 2007 in six different academic journals were examined. By assuming that each article was conducted at the institution listed as the primary author's affiliation, each journal article is evaluated using latent semantic analysis to reveal a set of correlations between the research themes of the articles year-by-year and location-by-location. With knowledge of the location and time of each publication, we show the spatial and thematic evolution of research activities in GIS.