Analyzing the evolution of learning technology area using science mapping

We present a systematic mapping, also called science mapping, to identify major areas of research activities concerning Learning Technology and the evolution from one area to another. The purpose of this work is to compare international tendencies with the LACLO community. The systematic mapping is primarily guided by author's keywords co-occurrence in the dataset selected. The scope of the data is limited by the sources of the literature used, in this case the LACLO and ICALT conferences and relevant Journals in the area, between years 2009 and 2016. We use the SciMat tool for this purpose and we present the analysis performed in the field of Learning Technology. Finally, some visual analytical studies of the identified areas and the relationships between them are presented. Incorporating the evolutionary stages of a specialty into the visual analytic study of the Learning Technology research domain is valuable. It provides a systematic methodology for researchers to achieve a good understanding of how the field evolves, to recognize potentially insightful patterns from visually encoded signs, and to synthesize various information so as to capture the state of the art of the domain.