A view of the academic family trees in Brazil

Abstract

The adviser-advisee relationship, which is characterized as a form of knowledge propagation, has the possible effect of promoting an increase in the scientific production of both. Specifically, in graduate programs, where this relationship is more active, either in the preparation of the thesis or in the derivation of works related to this type of study, where this is the central point of this research. In this study, orientation data extracted from curricula registered in the Lattes Platform are used, with the aim of obtaining, in addition to an overview of the orientation process in Brazil, an analysis of the bibliographic production. As a result, it was possible to observe that some individuals, especially those who work in postgraduate programs, tend to obtain a greater amount of direct guidance and, consequently, family trees with a greater number of generations. It was also verified that the areas of activity of the advisers are determinant for more dense family trees. Therefore, it is concluded that some areas such as Biological Sciences and Human Sciences hold the academic family trees with the highest number of generations and individuals, to the detriment of others such as Exact Sciences and Engineering. Innovative, the study makes genealogy into fifteen levels, a fact that previous studies only reach seven levels of guidance families. It also has a generation of computing technology and metrics to calculate everything and brings together analysis on a single platform.

Keywords

• Lattes Platform
• Scientometrics
• Academic genealogy
• Social networks analysis