Recently I was trying to scope the range and extent of available research relating to online gambling and responsible gambling, in order to determine whether it was necessary to undertake a full systematic review in this area. As a novice in this research area, I felt overwhelmed when I saw the sheer volume of existing publications. Worried that I didn't have enough time to familiarise myself with the literature or find relevant papers, I knew I needed some help. After some research I found a great piece of software called VOSviewer.
VOSviewer is an easy software tool that constructs and visualises bibliometric networks. These networks may be journals, authors, individual publications, or constructed based on citation, keyword, or co-citations. In a few clicks you can go from having zero comprehension of the literature to a data-driven informed understanding of the research area/topic/field. VOSviewer can be downloaded by clicking here.
After downloading the software and reading the manual, I was ready to go. First, I chose my specific search strategy by selecting two databases to scope: Web of Science and Scopus. Second, I searched these databases using the keywords "online gambl*", "internet gambl*", and "responsible gambl*". Given that Web of Science and Scopus are multidisciplinary databases covering mostly peer-reviewed literature, there were plenty of results. Next, I exported these results from their respected databases and loaded them into VOSviewer.
The actual process of exporting from a database and loading them into VOSviewer was made easy by the useful manual provided online. From here, I was able to run a number of exciting bibliometric analyses to familiarise myself with the literature.
Identifying Keywords
The first bibliometric analysis I ran involved identifying keywords (and co-occuring keywords) among the papers exported. This was a great way to 'eye-ball' the literature and to work out the key areas (or keywords) used in the research. Not only did VOSviewer perform this comprehensive analysis super fast but it also provided me with a great term map (or crazy mind-map) for visualisation purposes.
Within this term map, larger circles represent more occurrence of the keywords in the literature (i.e., "addiction", "problem gambling" are very common), and thicker lines represent stronger links between two keywords (i.e., more co-occurrences in the literature). Even more exciting, VOSviewer also 'groups' together common bibliometrics and differentiates them with different colours.
There are four main 'groups' in this term map. The red (or "Online gambling") seemingly relate to health and psychological characteristics, with keywords including "addiction", "substance use", "pathological gambling", "cognitive distortions", and "risk".
The blue (or "Internet gambling") seemingly relate to law, public policy and marketing, with keywords including "policy", "public health", "exposure", "advertising", and "marketing".
The green (or "Problem gambling") seemingly relate to legal requirements, marketing and responsible gambling, with keywords including "responsible gambling", "social responsibility", "prevention", "involvement", and "markers".
The yellow (or "Prevalence") seemingly relate to health and individual risk-factors, with keywords including "comorbidity", "alcohol", "risk factors", "disorders", and "problem gambling".
Identifying Journals
The second bibliometric analysis I ran involved identifying key journals among the papers exported. This was another great way to 'eye-ball' the literature area and to identify journals that commonly publish research using these keywords. Using the same data, I ran this additional analysis and was provided with another exciting term map.
Within this term map, larger nodes correspond to citation frequency (i.e., the larger the node, the more times it is cited), and proximity of journals correspond to citation relatedness (i.e., the closer two journals are located to each other, the stronger their relatedness). There are four main colours representing four categories of journals where they were published.
The red (or Clinical Psychology, Neuroscience, and Social Psychology) include journals such as Psychology Bulletin, Clinical Psychology Review, and Journal of Neuroscience.
The blue (or Addictive Behaviour and Public Health) include journals such as Journal of Addiction, Addictive Behaviours, and BMC Public Health.
The green (or Gambling Issues and Studies) include journals such as Journal of Gambling Studies, Journal of Gambling Issues, Computers in Human Behaviour, and Gaming Law Review.
The yellow (or Marketing, Consumer, Business and Management) include journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research.
Take-Home Message
Using VOSviewer helped me understand a literature field that I had zero idea about. It allowed me to identify key terms that are used within the literature (across journals) and find specific journals that would be fruitful to explore further. From the results (or lack thereof) generated, a systematic literature review on my particular research question seemed appropriate.