VOSviewer application within the scope of bibliometric analysis: Literature review on the use of virtual laboratories in education

Abstract

Scientific research is acknowledged as the main reason for producing information, and interdisciplinary interactions shape it. Within this broad and dynamic field, understanding scientific literature, exploring specific topics, and monitoring research trends is an important requirement. Bibliometric analysis has emerged as a powerful tool to achieve this goal. This article aims to understand the connections and trends in the literature on the virtual laboratory, analyze and visualize large data sets using the bibliometric analysis tool VOSviewer to understand the evolution of scientific research and examine interdisciplinary interactions. VOSviewer bibliometric analysis program offers researchers the opportunity to examine many connections in large data sets. For example, by using basic analysis techniques such as co-author and citation information, similarity of use of concepts within the study, these partnerships can be detected in many areas such as source(s), author(s) and references. In the method and application phase was made by analyzing nearly two thousand studies on the relevant subject area from both Google Scholar and Web of Science databases, using the scientific mapping approach in accordance with the systematic of the current research. The research results show that the research with the highest citation network was carried out by Gunawan, Herga, Dinevski, Manyilizu, and Majuto Clement. Whereas the basic concepts representing the studies in the field are education in chemistry, molecular biology, and technology. The results obtained from the study are aimed to help both the VOSviewer bibliometric analysis program and virtual laboratory studies.