Profiling the online laboratories research community and its core

Online Laboratory Research (OLR) has progressed beyond its stages of infancy and has unfolded into a respected domain of multi- and cross-disciplinary study. A sizable and dedicated community of researchers has formed. So far, however, few accounts exist which sufficiently analyze the profile of the online laboratory research community. The contribution of this paper is to define a framework for describing this profile, giving detailed accounts of the core researcher community and naming the most prolific researchers, determining their disciplinary backgrounds. The study also identifies and quantifies the preferred publishing outlets, distinguishing between core journals and core conferences, on the one hand, and non-core sites, on the other hand. This study has the potential of advancing the understanding of the emerging structure and profile of the academic domain of OLR and helps re-searchers identify adequate publishing outlets for their domain-related research.