How do you empirically score the importance of a gazillion science journals, and show the results in 10 seconds?
Here is a fantastic example of clustering via tree mapping (using Flare), produced by Eigenfactor.org and Moritz Stefaner, a noted data visualization designer. The interactive shows how different scientific journals are scored according to a value called an Eigenfactor score–the relative importance of a journal in its field. The score essentially counts the number of citations tracking back to a particular journal and–more importantly–the significance of those citations. The tree map is interactive and the interface intuitive–clicking on a particular cluster shows the path of incoming and outgoing citations (and their relative importance). Wow. I’m in love.
The tree mapping interactive is one of four very cool data visualizations (built using Flare) that Eignenfactor.org has developed–all of which attempt to show information flow in science. Citation patterns, change over time and information mapping are the others. I’ll write about these in later posts, but suffice it to say that you can spend hours on these.