AN EXPLORATION OF EXPERT-BASED TEXT ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES FOR ASSESSINGINDUSTRIAL RELEVANCE IN US ENGINEERING DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS

This paper describes exploratory research on the application of comput erized text analysis techniques to all U.S. engineering doctoral disse rtation abstracts dated 1981, 1986, and 1991. Experts were utilized to categorize abstracts by industrial relevance, and to identify appropr iate non-technology-specific word indicators within the abstracts. Wor d frequency and cluster analysis techniques were also explored for the ir potential utility in identifying technology-related word indicators of industrial relevance. The results of this work suggest that text a nalysis of engineering dissertation abstracts holds potential utility for identifying industrially relevant university-based engineering res earch, when used in conjunction with expert input and feedback.