Fog Computing Research: A Scientometric Assessment of Global Publications Output During 2012-18

Abstract

The present study has examined fog computing global research output, as indexed in Scopus database during 2012-18 on a series of bibliometric measures, such as publications growth rate, global publications share, citation impact, the share of international collaborative papers, distribution of publications by broad subjects. In addition, the study discusses the citation profile of top organizations and authors in fog computing, and the preferred media for research communication and characteristics of highly cited papers. The study finds 1711 global research output registered (68.09%) annual growth rate. 81 countries participated in fog computing research, of which the top 10 countries accounted for 91.23% global publication share and more than 100% of global citation share during 2012-18. China and USA tops the list of top 10 most productive countries in fog computing research with 22.38% and 19.40% global publication share, followed by India (9.70%), Italy (7.36%), Australia (6.14%), etc. USA top the list (17.02% and 2.25%), followed by Australia (15.54% and 2.06%), UK (12.09% and 1.59%), Canada (11.03% and 1.46%), Spain (9.95% and 1.32%), etc. in terms of citation impact per paper and relative citation index. 401 organizations and 457 authors participated in global fog computing research, of which the top 10 organizations and authors contributed (15.02% and 7.48%) global publication share and (42.17% and 12.81%) global citations share during 2012-18. The world contributed (59.75%) share of output in fog computing research in top 20 most productive journals, and 19 of its papers have been rated as highly cited papers each with 100 to 1657 citations per paper, averaging 209.79 citations per paper.