Scientometric review and analysis: A case example of smart buildings and smart cities

Over the years, there has been an increase in research outputs in the built environment leading to the need to make meaning out of this increasingly large corpus of research. The use of manual desktop review has been criticised for its lack of rigour, subjectivity, quantitative justifications, and capacity. In recent years, researchers have been adopting systematic techniques such as the scientometric review analysis. The scientometric analysis is a quantitative study of the intellectual evolution of research themes, based on large-scale datasets. In this chapter, fundamental issues concerning the use of scientometric review analysis in built environment research have been presented systematically. Sources of data, techniques, and software tools are discussed. Lastly, a case example that includes simplified steps of scientometric analysis has been presented using smart buildings and smart cities as the research theme. The chapter serves as a guide for the use of scientometric analysis as a secondary research methodology in the built environment.