Mapping the knowledge map of articles extracted from master's theses in information science and epistemology of Islamic Azad universities

The aim of this study was to draw a knowledge map of articles extracted from master's theses of   knowledge and information science in Islamic Universities.

The study is a retrospective descriptive study and has reviewed the articles extracted from 1995 to the first half of 2019 through bibliometric techniques. Data of 506 dissertations were collected using "List of Library and Information Dissertations of Iranian Universities" and "Iranian Dissertations Database" and "Information and Knowledge Dissertations Database" and 122 articles extracted from these dissertations from Persian databases were retrieved. Out of a total of 391 keywords, 33 keywords with a minimum frequency of 8 were selected using the Bufford and Threshold Inclusion law to construct an omnipotent matrix.

The results showed that according to the degree of centrality indicators of the top keywords, respectively, "National Archives and Library of Iran with a degree of 12th degree". "Grade 9 Centered Academic Libraries", "Grade 9 Centered Information Technology", "Grade 7 Centered Librarians" and "Grade 7 Centered Digital Libraries" in the first to fifth ranks and close centrality values ​​related to the top keywords University libraries, librarians, scientometrics, and public libraries rank first to fourth, respectively..

The results show that most of the articles in the dissertation focus on the topics of academic libraries, librarians, and public libraries, which can indicate the importance of these topics in undergraduate research. He is a senior at universities, but policy in this field can lead to the study of more diverse fields.