USING VOSVIEWER SOFTWARE IN COLLECTING MATERIALS OF OVERVIEW RESEARCH

Abstract

Research overviews play a critical role in scientific inquiry by enabling scholars to systematically map, evaluate, and synthesize existing knowledge related to a specific research problem. A theoretical research overview, in particular, seeks to integrate concepts, methods, and findings from prior studies in order to explain social and scientific phenomena and to identify gaps that warrant further investigation. Despite its importance, conducting a comprehensive and methodologically sound literature overview remains challenging, especially for early-career researchers and graduate students, who often face difficulties in locating, organizing, and critically assessing large volumes of academic publications. Systematic literature searching is therefore an essential stage in the research process, as it provides a structured approach to identifying relevant studies, understanding theoretical foundations, evaluating methodological trends, and assessing the strengths and limitations of existing research. Recent scholarship emphasizes the value of consensus across multiple literature reviews as a key step in ensuring rigor and reliability. At the same time, researchers are increasingly encouraged to engage with open-access data sources that enhance transparency, accessibility, and efficiency in knowledge production. Within this context, scientometric analysis has emerged as a powerful method for examining scientific development across disciplines. By combining quantitative bibliometric techniques with visualization tools, scientometric approaches allow researchers to identify influential publications, authors, institutions, and countries, as well as to track thematic evolution and citation patterns. Although previous studies have successfully applied tools such as VOSviewer using data from databases like Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, there remains a lack of practical guidance on leveraging open-access platforms—particularly OpenAlex—for comprehensive literature collection and analysis. This article addresses this gap by introducing OpenAlex as a valuable and openly accessible data source for systematic literature collection, in combination with VOSviewer software for scientometric analysis. The study demonstrates how researchers can efficiently retrieve, analyze, and visualize scholarly data to gain insights into research trends, citation impact, and knowledge structures. A practical illustration using the keyword “Digital Quantitative Analysis” is provided to guide users through the process. The findings highlight how this approach can significantly reduce time and effort in literature searching while supporting the identification of meaningful research gaps and future research directions.