Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: A Bibliometric Study on its Impact in the Scientific Literature
Open accessAbstract
Artificial intelligence has experienced major developments in recent years and represents an emerging technology that will revolutionize the ways in which human beings live. This technology is already being introduced in the field of higher education, although many teachers are unaware of its scope and, above all, of what it consists of. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to analyse the scientific production on artificial intelligence in higher education indexed in Web of Science and Scopus databases during 2007–2017. A bespoke methodology of bibliometric studies was used in the most relevant databases in social science. The sample was composed of 132 papers in total. From the results obtained, it was observed that there is a worldwide interest in the topic and that the literature on this subject is just at an incipient stage. We conclude that, although artificial intelligence is a reality, the scientific production about its application in higher education has not been consolidated.
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Past systematic reviews examined the research up to 2020.
“Past systematic reviews examined the research up to 2020.”
From Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field (2023) · cites this paper as Hinojo-Lucena et al., 2019
The Methodology section says this paper examined publications from 2007–2017, not through 2020. It also describes the work as a bibliometric study, although it followed PRISMA parameters. (LLM, conf=0.90)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredExtant systematic reviews on higher education highlighted the use of AIEd for prediction.
“Extant systematic reviews on HE highlighted the use of AIEd for prediction (viz., Chu etal., 2022; Hinojo-Lucena etal., 2019; Ouyang etal., 2022; Zawacki-Richter etal., 2019).”
From Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field (2023) · cites this paper as Hinojo-Lucena et al., 2019
The Discussion and Conclusions identifies prediction of a student’s mood during an online test as the subject of a highly cited AI-in-higher-education article. However, the Methodology calls this paper a bibliometric study, not a systematic review, so the citing sentence mischaracterizes the type of source. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn extant systematic reviews showed that the US led by a large margin in the number of studies published.
“In extant systematic reviews showed that the US led by a large margin in the number of studies published.”
From Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field (2023) · cites this paper as Hinojo-Lucena et al., 2019
The Impact Indicators section reports that the United States ranked first in both databases for publications on AI in higher education: 23.68% in Web of Science and 15.95% in Scopus. The runners-up had 15.78% and 11.70%, respectively, so the source supports a lead but does not clearly support calling it a large margin. The cited work is a bibliometric study, rather than an identified systematic review. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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“Extant systematic reviews on HE highlighted the use of AIEd for prediction (viz., Chu et al., 2022; Hinojo-Lucena et al., 2019; Ouyang et al., 2022; Zawacki-Richter et al., 2019).”
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- Authors
- Hinojo-Lucena, F.-J., Aznar-Díaz, I., Cáceres-Reche, M.-P., & Romero-Rodríguez, J.-M.
- Affiliations
- Department of Didactics and School Organization, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
- Venue
- Education Sciences
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2019-03-08
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 51
- ISSN
- 2227-7102 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2922512717
- Cited by
- 400
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 55 · 2025: 109 · 2024: 99 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 11
- FWCI
- 28.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- dx.doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Education Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Institutional Repository of the University of Granada (University of Granada) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (cc-by)
- Funders
- Universidad de Granada (AREA-HUM672)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Educational Technology in Learning
- Keywords
- artificial intelligence, higher education, educational technology, research trends, teacher awareness, artificial intelligence in education
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