Scientific Citation Network Visualization Tool

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

Executive Summary

A web-based tool that enables researchers to explore and visualize citation relationships between academic papers, helping them understand research influence patterns and discover related work.

Implementation Phases

Phase 1: Data Collection & Display (Current)

Goal: Build robust data collection pipeline and display raw citation data.

Features:

Accept DOI input and retrieve PMID
Fetch root paper XML from PubMed
Collect citing papers (PMIDs)
Collect reference papers (PMIDs from XML)
Collect related papers (PMIDs)
Fetch XML for all discovered PMIDs
Display as flat lists grouped by category
Show XML excerpts for verification

Display Format:

ROOT PAPER
- PMID, Title, Authors, Year
- XML excerpt (first 500 chars)

PAPERS CITING THIS
- List of PMIDs with titles when available

REFERENCES/CITED BY THIS
- List of PMIDs with titles when available

RELATED PAPERS
- List of PMIDs with titles when available

Phase 2: Data Processing & Analysis

Complete XML parsing for all metadata
Build citation graph structure
Calculate citation metrics
Enhanced display with tables and filters

Phase 3: Visualization Prototype

Interactive network visualization
Force-directed graph layout
Visual encodings for paper attributes

Technical Stack

Node.js/Express backend
Simple HTML/CSS frontend
PubMed API for data
File-based caching for XML

jmil/solarcanvasTest