scholasticwhere

Scholasticwhere is a term used in discussions of the geographic aspect of scholarly activity. It denotes the spatial distribution of research production, collaboration, and dissemination, focusing on where scholars are based, where research is conducted, and where influence propagates through citations and collaborations. The term acts as a conceptual complement to bibliometrics and scientometrics, adding a geospatial dimension to analyses of scholarly communication.

Origin and usage: The term appears in online discussions, research blogs, and emerging literature on geospatial bibliometrics. It is not yet widely standardized but is used to frame studies that map institutions, cities, regions, and countries in relation to research output.

Methodology: Researchers collect data from publications, author affiliations, conference locations, funding acknowledgments; use geocoding to assign coordinates to institutions; apply GIS, spatial clustering, and network analysis; produce heat maps and maps of collaboration networks to visualize where scholarly activity concentrates and how it flows.

Applications and implications: Scholasticwhere helps identify regional research ecosystems, supports policy decisions, informs funding strategies, and highlights disparities in access to infrastructure and collaboration opportunities. It can also inform debates on mobility, brain drain, and the creation of regional innovation systems.

Limitations and critique: Analyses depend on the quality and consistency of affiliation data, which can change over time and be ambiguous. Challenges include data sparsity in certain regions, shifts in institutional names, and privacy considerations when mapping individual researchers.

See also: bibliometrics, scientometrics, geospatial analysis of research.