  In this paper we describe a system for visualizing and analyzing worldwide
research topics, {\tt rtopmap}. We gather data from google scholar academic
research profiles, putting together a weighted topics graph, consisting of over
35,000 nodes and 646,000 edges. The nodes correspond to self-reported research
topics, and edges correspond to co-occurring topics in google scholar profiles.
The {\tt rtopmap} system supports zooming/panning/searching and other
google-maps-based interactive features. With the help of map overlays, we also
visualize the strengths and weaknesses of different academic institutions in
terms of human resources (e.g., number of researchers in different areas), as
well as scholarly output (e.g., citation counts in different areas). Finally,
we also visualize what parts of the map are associated with different academic
departments, or with specific documents (such as research papers, or calls for
proposals). The system itself is available at
\url{http://rtopmap.arl.arizona.edu/}.

Information Retrieval;Digital Libraries;Human-Computer Interaction