Scientific literature analysis of Judo in Web of Science

Abstract

Although judo is a sport with great tradition that is practised worldwide, the state of the art and scientific advanc- es have not been analysed from a bibliometric point of view up to now. The aim of the present article is the status of the scientific production, collaboration, and impact of scientific pa- pers on judo, as well as the most active research groups working on this topic. Our analysis was based on documents retrieved from the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index. Bibliometric analysis and network construction were performed using Histcite and Bibexcel software. As a result, 383 original papers and scientific reviews were retrieved from 162 journals in 78 Web of Science® cate- gories. Archives of Budo had the highest number of articles (56), and International Journal of Sports Medicine had the highest number of citations (192). More than half of the articles were within the area of sports science. The co- authorship network (threshold ≥3 articles) enabled us to identify 6 clusters of authors written in partnership. The citation network was formed mainly by 14 authors. Although research on judo is still at an early stage and has a lower profile than other sports, its development has potential interest to many scientific fields and sports in general. Judo research is mainly published in journals cov- ering sport science and sport medicine topics; the latter being the most cited ones. The co-authorship networks tended to be centralized, with a single lead author, while citation networks between authors were usually directed towards other areas of research.