Knowledge areas, themes and future research on open data: A co-word analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the literature on open data in three ways. The first is to develop a descriptive analysis of journals and authors to identify the knowledge areas in which open data are applied. The second is to analyse the conceptual structure of the field using a bibliometric technique. The coword analysis enabled us to create a map of the main themes that have been studied, identifying their importance and relevance. These themes were analysed and grouped. The third is to propose future research trends. According to our results, the main knowledge areas are Engineering, Health, Public Administration, Management and Education. The main themes are big data, open-linked data and data reuse. Finally, several research questions are proposed according to knowledge area and theme.