Objective: To understand the current status of research in the field of metaverse, and to analyze the research progress and evolutionary trends in this field. Methods: Based on the bibliometric analysis, a total of 259 papers were obtained by searching the Web of science core database for the keyword "metaverse" after elimination. CiteSpace was used to visualize and analyze the current status and trends of metaverse research in China. Results: China is currently the country with the largest number of publications in this field. India is currently the country with the highest research impact. A research network has been formed with Nanyang Technological University as the core. More than 1/3 of the authors in the field of metaverse research are core authors, and 10 research hotspots have been formed, such as artificial intelligence and social existence. Conclusion: The current research on metaverse in various fields is basically in its infancy, but has a great potential for future development and will gradually penetrate into many different directions. [
Short Report
The state of metaverse research - a bibliometric visual analysis based on CiteSpace
https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2996261/v1
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License
Journal Publication
published 10 Jan, 2024
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Metaverse
visual analysis
CiteSpace
With the approach of Internet 3.0, Industry 4.0, and Social Society 5.0, the meta-universe has become an industry and research hot spot that is currently attracting much attention [1–3]. As a product of the ultimate form of future society [4], the relationship between the virtual world constructed by the meta-universe and the real world has become the focus of discussion. However, from the borrowing of literary ideas to the landing of industrial applications, the exploration of the Proterozoic eon is still in the early stages of chaos, and different experts have not formed a unified and clear understanding of the Proterozoic universe. In the literary work Snow Collapse, the virtual parallel world in which users interact with characters is called the metaverse [5], which has also become the starting point of the metaverse mentioned by most scholars. At present, there is no high coverage of the applicable scene, for the definition of the meta-universe, it is difficult to have a conclusion. From the dual perspective of virtual world and real world, Lee et al [6] proposed three essential stages for the development of metaverse: Digital Twin, Native Content Creation and Co-exists and Interoperates.
Although the industry focuses on the extension of metaverse application scenarios, scholars pay more attention to the mechanism of metaverse in the process of data and manifestation of human thought and behavior[7]. Park et al [8] proposed the basis of four elements: sense of reality, popularisation of access and identity, interactivity and extensibility. People can communicate in the metaverse through digital avatars [9, 10], and activities in the real world have a new activity space with the help of augmented or virtual reality services. Utility becomes a mai` **9*n idea for the design of the parallel space of the meta-universe. Wang et al [11] put forward the concepts of meta-enterprise and meta-city, which correspond to the existing elements of enterprise and city, such as people, objects, organisation and site landscape. This paper provides a simulation scheme for analysing and evaluating the decision field, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of decisions through the computational experiment method. In addition, metaverse can also be used as the digital copy of enterprise marketing in the virtual world to realise the innovation of virtual platform, content service, consumer and business behaviour [12].
Based on the perspective of research correlation and trend of the metaverse, this paper reviews its literature, adopts CiteSpace software, based on bibliometric analysis method, takes the core data set of Web of Science as the literature data source, analyzes the latest research process and hot spots related to the metaverse from multiple dimensions, and analyzes its research trends and development trends. The relevant enlightenment of metaverse research is obtained comprehensively.
2.1 Data sources
The core data set of Web of Science includes tens of thousands of high-impact academic journals and conference documents worldwide, which has very high academic authority. This paper takes the core data set of Web of Science as the data source. The retrieval formula of thissubject was TS = (metaverse OR meta
-universe). The search time was up to May 7, 2023, and the search type is article and review. A total of 548 academic journal articles were retrieved, and 259 articles were obtained after the articles with low correlation was removed. The selected articles were downloaded in the format of “full records and cited references” and saved as plain text files as data samples for analysis.
2.2 Analysis methods
Based on bibliometric analysis, this paper used CiteSpace to visualize the authors, publishing institutions, countries and keywords of the selected articles, and drew co-occurrence maps of authors, institutions and countries, keyword co-occurrence, clustering and time line maps, so as to conduct a scientific and comprehensive analysis of the current status, hot spots and frontier trends of the meta-universe related research. To further understand the overall research progress in the field of metaverse.3.1. Publication trend analysis
The results of the statistical analysis of the number of metaverse-related articles in the WoS core database are shown in Fig. 1. The results show that metaverse-related research started as early as 2008, only to remain in a state of being studied by a few until 2021. It was not until 2022 that the concept of metaverse was proposed by Zuckerberg and touted by commercial companies, and at a time when academia also began to pay extensive attention to metaverse, the number of core articles on metaverse-related research has shown a spurt of growth since 2022, and by May 7, 2023, the total number of core articles on metaverse-related research has increased from 16 to 259 in 2021. Accordingly, the period 2008–2021 is described as the flat growth period of metaverse research development, and the period 2022 to the present as the exponential growth period.In fact, as early as 2008, scholars have begun to explore the concept of metaverse, and some scholars have begun to analyse the differences and links between the virtual world and the real world based on the MMORPG games[13], discussing the business opportunities and challenges of this virtual world ("Second Life"), and will study the impact of corporate social responsibility The focus is on ethical and political issues[14]. Online games are the main research entry point of the flat growth period of metaverse research development[15, 16]. The concept of the "metaverse" has, since its inception, had a strong science fiction connotation. The science fiction narrative of literary creation presents the cyber-virtual space in a highly figurative form, which is highly consistent with the technical characteristics and conceptual connotation of the current "metaverse"[17]. The digital cultural capital market has helped to popularise the concept of " metaverse ". In October 2021, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would change its name to "Meta", and in November the same year, Microsoft also announced that it would integrate virtual environment technology to create a "meta verse". Rob-lox identifies the eight elements of the meta-universe as identity, sociability, immersion, low latency, diversity, location, economic system and civilisation. As a virtual world based on reality, video games provide a natural convenience for the formation of the technical space and conceptual connotation of the "metaverse". From this time onwards, research in this field entered a period of the exponential growth.
3.2. Cooperation network analysis
3.2.1. Country cooperation network analysis
Country was chosen as the node type, and the literature obtained from the WoS core collection database on metaverse(Fig. 2). The national collaboration network(Fig. 2) shows a relatively strong international collaboration between countries, with the highest number of publications coming from China (93), followed by Korea (56), the USA (53), England (27) and India (16) (Table 1). The number of Chinese papers in metaverse England research is much higher than that of other countries, indicating the high level of interest of Chinese researchers in this field. In addition, China has initiated collaborative exchanges with many other countries. Furthermore, it can be noted that although the number of publications is much lower in India than in China, the centrality of nodes in India (centrality = 0.36) is much higher than in other countries, indicating a higher international influence in the field, while the influence of England (centrality = 0.14) and Australia (centrality = 0.14) are also slightly more influential in this field than China (centrality = 0.1), but the difference is not significant. During the exponential growth period of metaverse research, England, USA, India and Australia have significantly higher levels of international collaboration than other countries.
|
No. |
Countries |
Publications |
Percentage (%) |
Centrality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
PEOPLES R CHINA |
93 |
35.91% |
0.1 |
|
2 |
SOUTH KOREA |
56 |
21.62% |
0 |
|
3 |
USA |
53 |
20.46% |
0.03 |
|
4 |
ENGLAND |
27 |
10.42% |
0.14 |
|
5 |
INDIA |
16 |
6.18% |
0.36 |
|
6 |
AUSTRALIA |
13 |
5.02% |
0.14 |
|
7 |
SPAIN |
11 |
4.25% |
0.03 |
|
8 |
ITALY |
11 |
4.25% |
0 |
|
9 |
CANADA |
11 |
4.25% |
0.06 |
|
10 |
SINGAPORE |
10 |
3.86% |
0.01 |
3.2.2. Institution cooperation network analysis
A cooperation network analysis of institutions publishing articles on metaverse was performed using institution as the node type (Fig. 3; N = 123, E = 521, Density = 0.0335). During data processing, This paper compares "Nanyang Technological University & National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore" with "Nanyang Technological "University" combined the calculated quantity, and the data result after processing is shown in Table 2. It can be seen from Table 2 that Nanyang Technological University published more literatures in this field, 16 in total, accounting for 6.18% of all literatures. Nanyang Technological University and National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore, University of Waterloo, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and other institutions in the current cooperative research. And almost all institutional collaborations were conducted during the exponential growth period of metaverse research.
|
No. |
Institutions |
Publications |
Percentage (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Nanyang Technological University |
16 |
6.18% |
|
2 |
National Institute of Education (NIE) Singapore |
8 |
3.09% |
|
3 |
Chinese Academy of Sciences |
8 |
2.70% |
|
4 |
University of London |
7 |
2.32% |
|
5 |
Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
6 |
1.93% |
|
6 |
University System of Georgia |
5 |
1.93% |
|
7 |
Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) |
5 |
1.93% |
|
8 |
Dongguk University |
5 |
1.93% |
|
9 |
Bournemouth University |
5 |
1.54% |
|
10 |
University of Waterloo |
4 |
1.54% |
3.2.3. Author collaboration network analysis
The results of the author collaboration network analysis indicated that researchers in this field were more collaborative (Fig. 4). Among them, the authors with the most publications were Buhalis Dimitrios (5), Shen Xuemin (4), Nyato Dusit (4), Kshetri Nir (4), Miao Chunyan (3), Lee Jinkyung (3), and Kwon K Han (3). Although Buhalis Dimitrios, Shen Xuemin, Nyato Dusit and Kshetri Nir started their research in this field later, they all showed stronger publication ability in the last two years and had closer cooperation within the research team (Table 3). Foreign authors collaborate more closely in this field, but the collaboration between Chinese author teams is relatively loose. In the future, researchers from different countries should strengthen the cooperation and communication between different geographical areas in this field.
|
No. |
Authors |
Publications |
Percentage (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Buhalis Dimitrios |
5 |
1.93% |
|
2 |
Shen Xuemin |
4 |
1.54% |
|
3 |
Nyato Dusit |
4 |
1.54% |
|
4 |
Kshetri Nir |
4 |
1.54% |
|
5 |
Miao Chunyan |
3 |
1.16% |
|
6 |
Lee Jinkyung |
3 |
1.16% |
|
7 |
Kwon K Han |
3 |
1.16% |
|
8 |
Kim Jooyoung |
3 |
1.16% |
|
9 |
Gokasar llgin |
3 |
1.16% |
|
10 |
Devedi Muhammet |
3 |
1.16% |
N = 0.747(Nmax)1/2 (1)
In the formula (1), N is the minimum number of papers the core author should publish; Nmax is the number of papers by the most productive authors in the statistical year. According to formula (1), the number of papers published by core authors is at least about 1.67. So we can conclude the amount of core authors is 48.3.3. Popular research topics and trends
3.3.1. Keyword co-occurrence clustering analysis
In CiteSpace, a visual analysis of the keyword knowledge graph was performed on the retrieved documents. Firstly, the keywords are analysed for co-occurrence. In a co-occurrence network, the co-occurrence relationships between keywords are connected by connecting lines, and the greater the width of the line the greater the co-occurrence strength [20]. Keywords can summarise the research themes and contents of the literature in a concise manner. Keyword co-occurrence network analysis can reflect the development history and research hot topics of the relevant research fields, and can help researchers to quickly understand the dynamic evolution of each relevant knowledge unit in the field. In this study, the literature related to the metaverse in the WoS database was imported into CiteSpace and visualised and analysed with keywords as node types to obtain a keyword co-occurrence network spectrum (Fig. 5)
|
No. |
Keywords |
Frequency |
Centrality |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
virtual reality |
74 |
0.04 |
|
2 |
augmented reality |
30 |
0.03 |
|
3 |
virtual worlds |
27 |
0.13 |
|
4 |
system |
24 |
0.04 |
|
5 |
digital twins |
20 |
0.01 |
|
6 |
technology |
19 |
0.04 |
|
7 |
artificial intelligence |
18 |
0.02 |
|
8 |
model |
16 |
0.14 |
|
9 |
extended reality |
15 |
0.04 |
|
10 |
mixed reality |
12 |
0.03 |
|
11 |
internet |
11 |
0.12 |
|
12 |
information |
11 |
0.13 |
|
13 |
online |
10 |
0.1 |
|
14 |
impact |
10 |
0.01 |
|
15 |
opportunity |
9 |
0.21 |
|
16 |
behavior |
9 |
0.11 |
|
17 |
intention |
9 |
0.1 |
|
18 |
challenges |
9 |
0.03 |
|
19 |
block chain |
9 |
0.03 |
|
20 |
design |
9 |
0.04 |
3.3.2. Timeline visualization of keyword co-occurrence clustering analysis
-
Timeline visualization contained 194 nodes and 757 connected lines, and the cluster analysis revealed that the research focus of metaverse differed at different time stages. The value of Modularity Q (0.5819) was greater than 0.3, indicating that the community structure divided by this keyword clustering will be significant. The value of Silhouette S (0.8178) was greater than 0.7, indicating that this keyword clustering is efficient. As can be seen from Fig. 6, 10 clusters have been formed in the current metaverse research literature. They are artificial intelligence, social presence, safety regulation, second life, google trends, attitude, neuro-symbolic AI, virtual avatar, rendering, and virtual learning environment. The initial development of each metaverse hotspot cluster can be traced back to the period from 2008 to 2010. Among them, researches on artificial intelligence, google trends and attitude are hot trends. The research on social presence and second life is getting colder and colder. The fastest progress has been in artificial intelligence. It can also be seen that since 2021, all kinds of research on the meta-universe have developed rapidly, and there are new directions in the field of artificial intelligence, such as resources and security.
3.3.3. Keyword burst analysis
The burst analysis of keywords can help to reveal the trend of hot topics in related research fields, and the higher the emergence intensity, the higher the attention of the academic community [12]. The top 20 keywords in terms of burst strength were obtained through burst keywords detection, as shown in Table. 5, where “Year” is the year of the original publication, “Strength” is the emergent strength, “Begin” and “End” are the start and end times of the burst keywords, and the red line is the time period when the burst keywords are active, which means that the burst keywords receive a lot of attention from researchers in that time periodOf all the emergent words, the one with the highest intensity is Second Life, which first appeared in 2009 and ended in 2015. The virtual worlds and environments that appeared almost simultaneously are still being studied in recent years. In 2011, the service adoption model, the business model, the bass model and the diffusion model appeared briefly, but never again. Between 2017 and 2021, scholars began to discuss important technologies related to the metaverse, such as mixed reality and deep learning. As the concept of the metaverse becomes more widely known in 2022, more keywords begin to appear from different fields, such as impact, students, acceptance, mental health, and self.
Table. 5
Top 20 keywords with the strongest citation bursts on metaverse research.
Of all the emergent words, the one with the highest intensity is Second Life, which first appeared in 2009 and ended in 2015. The virtual worlds and environments that appeared almost simultaneously are still being studied in recent years. In 2011, the service adoption model, the business model, the bass model and the diffusion model appeared briefly, but never again. Between 2017 and 2021, scholars began to discuss important technologies related to the metaverse, such as mixed reality and deep learning. As the concept of the metaverse becomes more widely known in 2022, more keywords begin to appear from different fields, such as impact, students, acceptance, mental health, and self.
In this study, we used CiteSpace to visualize and analyze the literature related to metaverse in the WoS core collection database and analyzed the collaboration between countries, institutions and authors in this field.
A. research status
In terms of international cooperation network, China has the largest number of publications, but the degree of international cooperation is still lower than England, the USA and other countries. The country with the most international influence in this field is India. In the analysis of the network of published institutions, a research network with Nanyang Technological University as the core has been formed, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks only the third. Of the top five authors with the most published papers, only two are Chinese. This indicates that the study of the metaverse by Chinese research institutions and Chinese authors needs to be strengthened. In addition, there are 48 core authors in the field of meta-universe research, more than 1/3 of the total number of authors, which indicates that the research progress of researchers in this field is not different.
B. research hotspots
Through the scientific econometric analysis of keywords, it can be seen that virtual reality and artificial intelligence are the most popular research objects in the field of metaverse related research. Generally speaking, Research hotspots in the academic circle mainly focus on intelligence, social presence, safety regulation, second life, google trends, attitude, neuro-symbolic AI, virtual avatar, rendering, and virtual learning environment.
C. development trend
Based on the analysis of research hot topics and core evolutionary pathways, combined with related research articles and reviews, the future research direction is proposed in order to provide a new theoretical perspective for the future study of the metaverse.At present, there are three different ideas in the related research of the metaverse: (1) the cross-study of the metaverse with other fields; (2) Supporting research on related technologies and infrastructure of the meta-universe; (3) Research on the technology ethics and governance policy of the metaverse. In addition, experience, students, acceptance, mental health, and self may become potential research directions.
Ethics approval and consent to participate: This article does not involve any animal or human testing and does not require the approval of the ethics committee.
Consent for publication: Not applicable.
Author Contributions: Huike Li: Visualization, Data curation, Writing-orginall draft preparation, and Software; Bo Li: Conceptualization, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Supervision, and Funding acquisition. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: Research on the role of positive anxiety and instructional design in a hybrid teaching model", a key project of the 14th Five-Year Plan of Heilongjiang Provincial Education Science (GJB1422735).
Availability of data and materials: The data used in this paper are all publicly accessible. The paper data in metaverse research can be downloaded via https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/summary/cd01c8fe-66e1-41fd-a83d-308ef2328544-90363efe/relevance/1, accessed on 7 May 2023..
Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank all contributors who supported the field work and the
data collection and analysis.
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No competing interests reported.