Software tools for bibliometric data visualization and interpretation

Today, scientific knowledge is generated at increasingly high rate, which makes manual analysis of scientific landscape almost impossible even for a narrow discipline. There is a need for instrument to structure, analyze and visualize research data. The author analyzes and compare software tools of bibliometric analysis for the bibliographic data arrays. The main purpose is to study bibliometric programs (Bibliometrix, Biblioshiny, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace), oriented at visualization and identification of structural and dynamic characteristics of disciplines. The key functional features of these products are discussed, i. e. supported data sources, types of indicators, and ways of visualization – co-authorship maps, keyword, publication, or research collaboration co-references. The methodology combines both descriptive and analytical methods: the author characterizes each tool based on its documentation and practical testing. The obtained results are analyzed and summarized in a spreadsheet. Based on the comparative analysis, the strong and weak points are identified for each program tool. The author formulates recommendations for choosing a tool depending on goals.