Recent software developments make it possible for marine scientists to build powerful and robust interactive applications with a minimum of web-specific programming skills. For example, the Shiny extension of the widely used R language automatically handles most of the challenges that used to be major obstacles to implementation (e.g. browser and operating system compatibility, adjusting layouts for device screen size). However, most applications to-date do not use the full potential of these new tools.
We are compiling an inventory of online apps for fisheries and oceanography to identify patterns in what's currently available, and priorities for future app development.
The plot below has an overview of our current data set. For more detailed explorations, go to AppTaxonomy.
Patterns in scientific activity have been studied extensively, culminating in scientometrics as a distinct discipline. We check whether some empirical laws of scientometrics, based mainly on primary publications, also apply to the body of work produced by fisheries agencies.
Overall trends are (Price 1986, Rigler and Peters 1995):
- The size of science (people, journals, papers) has doubled every 10-20 years for the last 300 years, at roughly twice the rate of population growth, so that over 85% of all scientists that ever worked are still active and the body of literature increases tenfold over the course of a professional career.
- About 25% of the researchers contribute 75% of the published materials, and more recent papers tend to have more authors spanning more specialties.
The plot below shows the change in author numbers across all records in our current data set. For more detailed explorations, go to GreyLitScientometrics.
