Assessing research network and disciplinary engagement changes induced by an NSF program

J. G. Garner, A. L. Porter, N. C. Newman, T. A. Crowl
2012 Research Evaluation  
To assess the success of the National Science Foundation's Research Coordination Network (RCN) program, a set of publication measures and visualization tools were used to determine how effective the program is in enhancing interdisciplinary publication and information sharing. The publication patterns of a set of researchers were compared before and after receiving RCN awards. These analyses show significant increases in basic collaboration measures -authors per paper and institutions per
more » ... ollowing RCN support. Various indications suggest increased linkage among the RCN researchers in terms of extent of co-authoring and of cross-citing each other's work. RCN support appears to foster more interdisciplinary research. Diffusion scores (a new metric) showed that the diversity of articles citing RCN-related articles was similar to those citing control group research. Finally, the articles generated by the project activities showed as especially influential; they appear in high impact journals and are more highly cited.
doi:10.1093/reseval/rvs004 fatcat:c36syqxl5vdalkut6hri7gjei4