Bibliometric analysis of ocean literacy: An underrated term in the scientific literature

Since the term “ocean literacy” (OL) was proposed in 2004 by a group of professionals dedicated to ocean sciences, marine education, and general education policies, its principles have spread worldwide. In order to better understand OL-related research a bibliometric analysis was performed with data from databases obtained from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). Fifty-two publications matched the search criteria (articles and conference papers with OL as part of title, keywords and/or abstract). Analysed parameters included the document types, publishing outlets, authors, countries, institutes, author keywords and title words. The term OL in scientific publications has been quantitatively dominated by the United States of America (USA), followed by the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. The UK and Italy were the countries with the most international collaborative publications on this theme. In addition, the UK was the country that established the most international collaborations. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was the most productive institution and the Proceedings of the MTS/IEEE OCEANS 2005 was the publishing outlet containing the most publications. The analysis has also revealed the intrinsic link between science and OL, the use of questionnaires to evaluate the level of citizens' knowledge, values and awareness about marine issues, and the emphasis placed on educational approaches to improve OL.