Visualization of co-readership patterns from an online reference management system

In this paper, we present a methodology and prototype for creating knowledge domain visualizations based on readership statistics recorded in the social reference management system Mendeley. In particular, we use co-readership patterns to map the field of educational technology. The resulting visualization, based on the most read publications in this field on Mendeley, reveals 13 subject areas of educational technology research. The visualization is a recent representation of the field: 80% of the publications included were published within ten years of data collection. The characteristics of the readers, however, introduce certain biases to the visualization. Knowledge domain visualizations based on readership statistics are therefore multifaceted and timely, but it is important that the characteristics of the underlying sample are made transparent.