An Analysis of Research on Information Reuse and Integration Min-Yuh Day 1, 2 , Chorng-Shyong Ong 1 , and Wen-Lian Hsu 2,* , Fellow, IEEE 1 Department of Information Management , National Taiwan University, Taiwan 2 Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan {myday, hsu}@iis.sinica.edu.tw; ongcs@im.ntu.edu.tw Abstract Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) plays a pivotal role in the capture, representation, maintenance, integration, validation, and extrapolation of information. Both information and knowledge are applied to enhance decision-making in various application domains. The objective of this paper is to provide a summary and analysis of research devoted to advancing the field of information reuse and integration. To this end, we identify the most popular research topics, together with the most productive researchers and institutions associated with the majority of research publications of the International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration during the past six years (2003-2008). Based on those publications, we have identified the most popular research topics, as well as the top researchers and institutions in the field of Information Reuse and Integration. Keywords: Content Analysis; Information Reuse and Integration; IRI Topics; Meta Analysis 1. Introduction The study of Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) is a relatively new research area; thus, an analysis of the latest literature would be useful to show what researchers are doing and what can be done to improve our approach [7]. This paper analyzes articles published by the IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration between 2003 and 2008. Specifically, we consider topics, authors, and institutions. IRI research can be broadly categorized into application development, IRI theory building, and the study of reference disciplines. Since IRI applications are the outcomes of IRI research activities, it is important to periodically survey IRI applications to monitor progress in the field as a basis for setting the direction of future research. Through this survey, our intention is to inform both academicians and practitioners about the areas in which IRI applications are reported, as well as to provide insight into major historical trends, the implications of this study, and future directions for new theoretical developments [8]. We also provide a comprehensive reference list of literature on IRI. The International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) is currently sponsored by the IEEE Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Society. The first Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) conference was held in 1999. IEEE IRI 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 were held in Las Vegas, and IRI 2006 was held in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA. Since it started in 2003, IEEE-IRI has become a major, highly respected international conference. The proceedings of the IEEE IRI are indexed and included in IEEE Xplore, DBLP, Scopus, and EI. We selected IRI conferences over other sources, such as computer science (CS) journals and other CS conferences for a number of reasons. First, we consider IEEE IRI to be the most prestigious international conference in the field of IRI. For example, IRI consistently receives more than 200 submissions from researchers all over the world (IRI 2007), and it has become the primary forum for IRI researchers to interact, communicate, and demonstrate their research. Second, as a conference, IRI has a faster turnaround time than journals, i.e., its review process is much shorter than that of CS journals [24]. As a result, papers published in IRI can report new ideas and thoughts, the latest research directions, and up-to-date research results in a timely manner. Our objective is to provide a summary and analysis of research that advances the field of information reuse and integration. To this end, we identify the most popular research topics, together with the most productive researchers and institutions associated with the majority of research publications of the International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration during the past six years (2003-2008). Based on a detailed analysis of those publications, we have identified the most popular research topics, as well as the top researchers and institutions in the field of Information Reuse and Integration. In the following, we discuss our findings and the implications of the study. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present a brief introduction of the background of this research. Section 3 describes the research methods and data used in this study. In Section 4, we provide the 978-1-4244-4116-7/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE 188 IEEE IRI 2009, July 10-12, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA