Build Up of a Subject Classification System from Collective Intelligence

Abstract

Systematized subject classification is essential for funding and assessing scientific projects. Conventionally, classification schemes are founded on the empirical knowledge of the group of experts; thus, the experts’ perspectives have influenced the current systems of scientific classification. Those systems archived the current state-of-art in practice, yet the global effect of the accelerating scientific change over time has made the updating of the classifications system on a timely basis vertually impossible. To overcome the aforementioned limitations, we propose an unbiased classification scheme that takes advantage of collective knowledge; Wikipedia, an Internet encyclopedia edited by millions of users, sets a prompt classification in a collective fashion. We construct a Wikipedia network for scientific disciplines and extract the backbone of the network. This structure displays a landscape of science and technology that is based on a collective intelligence and that is more unbiased and adaptable than conventional classifications.