With the advent of network science, it has become possible to explore complex network systems, including social and information networks, by presenting them as graph models. The exponential growth of the total volume of scientific publications determines the relevance of the tasks of analyzing their interrelations. In network science, models and methods related to the field of so-called citation networks are being developed to solve these problems. However, network metrics are not used when analyzing publications in citation databases. The paper considers the issues of creating a decision support system for the selection of information sources based on data on the citation of scientific publications. A software package has been developed for making decisions on determining an important publication in a certain thematic area. The software package is based on a method of ranking publications by importance based on the analysis of citation networks, which allows you to identify publications that do not clearly stand out when ranking based on known bibliometric indicators or known measures of centrality of nodes in their pure form. A study and comparative analysis of software for visualization and research of all types of graphs and social networks has been conducted. Studies have been carried out confirming the effectiveness of the proposed decision support system in the selection of information sources.

The relevance of the issues of the analysis of scientific publications is due to the fact that with the of Internet technologies, it became possible to collect data on the publication citation network. Meanwhile, the current approach to the analysis of scientific publications is based on bibliometric indicators that take into account only the number of citations. However, network analysis, which is mainly used in the study of social networks, is becoming increasingly widely used. The author has developed a methodology that allows for an effective analysis of scientific publications based on network analysis methods alternative to bibliometric methods. As criteria for evaluating scientific publications based on network analysis, relevant measures of the centrality of the citation network nodes are established: centrality by degree of connectivity; centrality by proximity to other nodes; centrality by mediation; centrality by authority; centrality by concentration. The author presented the experiment result that allows validating the developed methodology of network analysis of the scientific publications significance. Scientometric databases were used as primary sources of data on publications, which make it possible to track the citation of publications and identify relevant citation networks. The application of the proposed network analysis methodology contributes to the identification of important publications in the development of the scientific direction.