IllustryFlow: A Modular Framework for Automated Bibliometric Analysis Using n8n and BERT-Enhanced Topic Classification

The accelerating growth of scientific publications has intensified the need for scalable and interoperable tools capable of supporting bibliometric analysis and research evaluation. In response to this challenge, this paper introduces IllustryFlow, a modular framework that combines n8n, an open-source workflow automation engine, with Illustry, a dynamic visualization platform, to extract, classify, and interpret scholarly data retrieved from OpenAlex. At the core of the framework is a multilingual BERT-based classification model implemented within the OpenAlex infrastructure, trained on the CWTS (Centre for Science and Technology Studies from Leiden University) classification schema and enriched with metadata features such as journal-level embeddings and citation graph information. IllustryFlow enables automated topic classification, clustering, and semantic visualization of citation networks, co-authorship structures, and thematic distributions. In this framework, Illustry and the custom n8n nodes represent components developed by the author, while OpenAlex and the OpenAlex-enhanced BERT model are integrated as external resources. The principal contribution of this study therefore consists of the architectural design and operational integration of these components into a unified, modular, automated, and reproducible bibliometric workflow. The proposed framework integrates an explicit and reproducible strategy for querying, semantic filtering, and selection of the bibliographic corpus. The framework was evaluated on a dataset of 1756 bibliographic records, and the entire workflow, including dashboard generation, was completed in approximately 90 s under the experimental conditions considered. The obtained results support the feasibility of the framework for scalable bibliometric workflows and indicate its practical potential for the analysis of heterogeneous bibliographic corpora while maintaining reproducibility under the analyzed conditions.