Link-based approach to study scientific software usage: the case of VOSviewer

Abstract Scientific software is a fundamental player in modern science, participating all stages of scientific knowledge production. Software occasionally supports the development trivial tasks, while at other instances it determines procedures, methods, protocols, results, or conclusions related with work. The growing relevance as research product value its own has triggered quantitative science studies software. main objective this study to illustrate link-based webometric approach characterize online mentions across different analytical frameworks. To do this, bibliometric VOSviewer used case study. Considering VOSviewer’s official website baseline, were counted three frameworks: academic literature via Google Scholar (988 mentioning publications), webpages Majestic (1,330 websites), and tweets Twitter (267 tweets). scholar shows how resource, whilst show interest on from an informational conversational point view. Results evidence that URL can be gather sorts impacts non-traditional objects, like software, thus expanding scientometric toolset by incorporating novel digital dimension.