Knowledge Mapping Research
Knowledge Map of Information Science

Maps: Croatian (Zdravko Palavra) • English • Portuguese • Serbian(Ljiljana Kovačević) • Slovenian(Igor Brbre) • Spanish (Prof. Rodrigo Ronda León, Havana University, Cuba)

In 2003-2005 Dr. Zins conducted a mapping study, "Knowledge Map of Information Science", which was supported by a research grant from the Israel Science Foundation (an organ of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities). This was a Critical Delphi study with an interdisciplinary panel composed of 57 leading scholars from 16 countries.

The panel. The following scholars participated in the panel: Dr. Hanne Albrechtsen, Institute of Knowledge Sharing, Denmark; Prof. Elsa Barber, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Prof. Dr. Aldo de Albuquerque Barreto, Ministry of Science & Technology; Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology, Brazil; Prof. Shifra Baruchson–Arbib, Bar Ilan University, Israel; Prof. Clare Beghtol, University of Toronto, Canada; Prof. Maria Teresa Biagetti, University of Rome 1, Italy; Prof. Michael Buckland, University of California, Berkeley, USA; Manfred Bundschuh, University of Applied Sciences, Cologne, Germany; Dr. Quentin L. Burrell, Isle of Man International Business School, Isle of Man; Dr. Paola Capitani, Working Group Semantic Web, Italy; Prof. Rafael Capurro, University of Applied Sciences, Stuttgart, Germany; Prof. Thomas A. Childers, Drexel University, USA; Prof. Charles H. Davis, Indiana University; the University of Illinois, USA; Prof. Anthony Debons, University of Pittsburgh, USA; Prof. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Mälardalen University, Sweden; Prof. Henri Dou, University of Aix-Marseille III, France; Prof. Nicolae Dragulanescu, Polytechnics University of Bucharest, Romania; Prof. Carl Drott, Drexel University, USA; Prof. Luciana Duranti, University of British Columbia, Canada; Prof. Hamid Ekbia, University of Redlands, USA; Prof. Charles Ess, Drury University, USA; Prof. Raya Fidel, University of Washington, USA; Prof. Thomas J. Froehlich, Kent State University, USA; Alan Gilchrist, Cura Consortium and TFPL, UK; Dr. H.M. Gladney, HMG Consulting, USA; Prof. Glynn Harmon, University of Texas at Austin, USA; Dr. Donald Hawkins, Information Today, USA; Prof. Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA; Ken Herold, Hamilton College, USA; Prof. William Hersh, Oregon Health & Science University, USA; Prof. Birger Hjorland, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark; Sarah Holmes*, the Publishing Project, USA. Prof. Ian Johnson*, the Robert Gordon University, UK; Prof. Wallace Koehler, Valdosta State University, USA; Prof. Donald Kraft, Louisiana State University, USA;Prof. Yves François Le Coadic, National Technical University, France; Dr. Jo Link-Pezet, Urfist, and University of Social Sciences, France; Michal Lorenz, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic; Prof. Ia McIlwaine, University College London, UK; Prof. Michel J. Menou, Knowledge and ICT management consultant, France; Prof. Haidar Moukdad, Dalhousie University, Canada; Dennis Nicholson, Strathclyde University, UK; Prof. Charles Oppenheim, Loughborough University, UK; Prof. Lena Vania Pinheiro, Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology, Brazil; Prof. Maria Pinto, University of Granada, Spain; Prof. Roberto Poli, University of Trento, Italy; Prof. Ronald Rousseau, KHBO, and University of Antwerp, Belgium; Dr. Silvia Schenkolewski–Kroll, Bar Ilan University, Israel; Scott Seaman*, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA; Prof. Richard Smiraglia, Long Island University, USA;Prof. Paul Sturges, Loughborough University, UK; Prof. Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee, USA;Dr. Joanne Twining, Intertwining.org, a virtual information consultancy, USA; Prof. Anna da Soledade Vieira, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil; Dr. Julian Warner, Queen's University of Belfast, UK;Prof. Irene Wormell, Swedish School of Library and Information Science in Borås, Sweden; Prof. Yishan Wu, Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC), China.
* An observer (i.e., those panel members who did not strictly meet the criteria for the panel selection and terms of participation.)

The study was presented at the ASIST (American Society for Information Science & Technology) 2005 Annual Meeting, and at the Ninth ISKO (International  Society for Knowledge Organization) Conference in Vienna, 2006. Four articles resulted from the study:

1. Zins, C., (2007). Conceptual approaches for defining "Data", "Information", and "Knowledge". Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIST), 58 (4). pp. 479-493.

2. Zins, C., (2007). Conceptions of Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIST), 58 (3), pp. 335-350.  

3.  Zins, C., (2007). Classification Schemes of Information Science: 28 Scholars Map the Field. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIST), 58.

4. Zins, C., (2007) Knowledge Map of Information Science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIST), 58 (4), pp. 526-535.

In addition, 11 scholars reflected on the implications of the study for future of the field. The article was published in the Brazilian Journal of Information Science:
Zins, C., Debons, A., Beghtol, C., Buckland, M., Davis, C.H., Dodig-Crnkovic, G., Dragulanescu, N., Harmon, G., Kraft, D.H., Poli, R., and Smiraglia, R.P. (2007).  Knowledge Map of Information Science: Implications for the Future of the Field. Brazilian Journal of Information Science (BJIS), 1