Mapping Intellectual Structure of Knowledge and Information Science in Iran based on Co-word Analysis

: Using a co-word analysis, this study aims to mapping the intellectual structure of Iran KIS (Knowledge and Information Science) in Islamic World Science Citation Database (ISC) during two 5-year periods from 2006 to 2015. This is an applied scientometric research which uses co-word analysis. The research population consists of 2467 articles which have been published in the KIS journals and indexed in the ISC. SPSS, BibExcel and UCInet are utilized for preparing and analyzing data and also for visualizing maps. Findings showed that in the first time period (2006-2010), 7 clusters and in the second time period (2011-2016), 13 clusters were formed which in both time periods, “scientometric cluster” is the most important one. Despite the relative overlap between clusters of the two periods, the topics in the second period were of a higher number and breadth. In both periods of study, “university” is the most frequent keyword with 82 and 149 occurrences, respectively. “Journals” is the next frequent keyword in the first period, and “academic libraries” in the second period, with the occurrences of 54 and 108, respectively. The more emphasis on the IT related issues, such as digital libraries, in the second period is one of the main differences between the two time periods.