Journal of Measurement and Evaluation
JME, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp.36-58.
Print ISSN: 3135-4661; Online ISSN: 3135-467X
Journal homepage: https://www.jmeacta.com
DOI：Https://doi.org/10.64058/JME.26.1.03
Interdisciplinarity, Temporal Diversity, and Scientific Impact: Perspective on References[1]
Alex J. Yang, Zuorong Wang, Sanhong Deng, Hao Wang, Xuezhou Zhang
Abstract: Building on the concept of interdisciplinarity, this paper proposes a measurement framework for temporal diversity, quantifying it into four dimensions: temporal richness, temporal imbalance, temporal disparity, and temporal depth. This study meticulously analyzes the temporal trends and distribution characteristics of interdisciplinarity and temporal diversity, as well as the career evolution patterns of high-level scientists, using 38,879,575 scientific papers from the Microsoft Academic Graph database spanning from 1950 to 2020. Furthermore, it explores the relationship between interdisciplinarity, temporal diversity, and scientific impact. The findings reveal that: (1) Interdisciplinarity and temporal diversity of papers exhibit a consistent growth trend but differ in their field distribution. (2) Both interdisciplinarity and temporal diversity indicators show heterogeneous distribution characteristics, such as scale-free distribution, and there is a weak correlation between them. (3) During the careers of high-level scientists, both interdisciplinarity and temporal diversity show significant growth trends, largely attributable to the increase in the number of references in their papers. (4) Interdisciplinarity and temporal diversity have opposite effects on scientific impact: interdisciplinarity significantly promotes scientific impact, while temporal diversity significantly inhibits it; a combination of strong interdisciplinarity and weak temporal diversity has the highest probability of becoming a disruptive hotspot paper. The temporal diversity measurement framework proposed in this paper enriches the theories of knowledge integration and interdisciplinarity, providing insights for science and technology policy and academic evaluation.
Key Words: Interdisciplinarity; Temporal Diversity; Citation Network; Scientific Career.
Author Biography: Alex J. Yang, Ph.D., his main research interests include scientometrics, complex networks, and innovation measurement. Zuorong Wang, Ph.D., her main research interests focus on information organization and retrieval, and scientometrics. Sanhong Deng, Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor, E-mail: sanhong@nju.edu.cn, his main research areas encompass domain knowledge graphs, scientometrics, information analysis, and scientific evaluation. Hao Wang, Ph.D., is a Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor. His primary research focuses on text mining and knowledge graphs. Xuezhou Zhang, a Senior Engineer and Associate Dean. His main research areas include standards analysis and knowledge organization.
Received: 18 Nov 2025 / Revised: 04 Dec 2025 / Accepted: 20 Dec 2025 / Published online: 30 Apr 2026 / Print published: 30 May 2026.
This article is an English translation of the following Chinese article: Alex J. Yang, WANG Zuorong, DENG Sanhong, WANG Hao & HANG Xuezhou (2024). Interdisciplinarity, Temporal Diversity, and Scientific Impact: Perspective on References. Journal of the China Society for Scientific and Technical Information,43(09),1003-1014. https://doi.org/10.3772/j.issn.1000-0135.2024.09.001. Translated by the original authors.
