Single-authored Papers Research Articles

Making visible the invisible through the analysis of acknowledgements in the humanities

PurposeScience is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas acknowledgements, despite being a well-established element in scholarly communication, have not received the same attention. The purpose of this paper is to put forward the bearing of acknowledgements in the humanities to bring to the foreground contributions and interactions that, otherwise, would remain invisible through traditional indicators of research performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study provides a comprehensive framework to understanding acknowledgements as part of the reward system with a special focus on their value in the humanities as a reflection of intellectual indebtedness. The distinctive features of research in the humanities are outlined and the role of acknowledgements as a source of contributorship information is reviewed to support these assumptions.Findings“Peer interactive communication” is the prevailing support thanked in the acknowledgements of humanities, so the notion of acknowledgements as “super-citations” can make special sense in this area. Since single-authored papers still predominate as publishing pattern in this domain, the study of acknowledgements might help to understand social interactions and intellectual influences that lie behind a piece of research and are not visible through authorship.Originality/valuePrevious works have proposed and explored the prevailing acknowledgement types by domain. This paper focusses on the humanities to show the role of acknowledgements within the reward system and highlight publication patterns and inherent research features which make acknowledgements particularly interesting in the area as a reflection of the socio-cognitive structure of research.

Prevalence of URLs in Library and Information Science (LIS) Literature: A Citation Analysis

This paper intends to know the prevalence of URLs as citations in Library and Information Science scholarly publications. A total of 8203 research articles published in 12 LIS journals during the years 2006-2015 were studied. Of the 288,452 citations 42,098 were URLs. The characteristics associated with the cited URLs were also analyzed. The study revealed that an average of 5.42 URL citations per article was cited among the single-authored papers. The study also indicated the fact that URLs associated with organizational and commercial domains were highly cited and the HTML and PDF file formats were dominatingly cited.

Citations and author numbers in six sciences

For 13 journals in six sciences (astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, geophysics, and physics) I counted citations in 2017 to 3094 papers published in 2012. It was found that on the average the numbers of citations per paper increased slowly (factor of 1.5) with team sizes but the citations per author are much higher (by an average factor of 6.1) for single-author papers than for large teams. Therefore a researcher will get more credit by working in a small team than in a large one.

Citations and Team Sizes

I explore whether small or large teams produce the most important astronomical results, on average, using citation counts as our metric. I present evidence that citation counts indicate the importance of papers. For the 1343 papers published in A&A, ApJ, and MNRAS in 2012 January-February, I considered 4.5 years worth of citations. In each journal, there are larger citation counts for papers from large teams than from small teams by a factor of about 2. To check whether the results from 2012 were unusual, I collected data from 2013 for A&A and found it to be the same as that for 2012. Could the preponderance of papers by large teams be due to self-citations (i.e., citing and cited papers sharing one or more authors)? To answer this, I looked at 136 papers with one to 266 authors and discovered a linear relation that ranges from a 12.7% self-citation rate for single-author papers to a 45.9% self-citation rate for papers with 100 authors. Correcting for these factors is not enough to explain the predominance of the papers with large teams. Then I computed citations per author. While large teams average more citations than small ones by a factor of 2, individuals on small teams average more citations than individuals on large teams by a factor of 6. The papers by large teams often have far more data, but those by small teams tend to discuss basic physical processes.

Attributing credit to coauthors in academic publishing: The 1/n rule, parallelization, and team bonuses

Universities looking to recruit or to rank researchers have to attribute credit scores to their academic publications. While they could use indexes, there remains the difficulty of coauthored papers. It is unfair to count an n-authored paper as one paper for each coauthor, i.e., as n papers added to the total: this is “feeding the multitude” . Sharing the credit among coauthors by percentages or by simply dividing by n (“1/n rule”) is fairer but somewhat harsh. Accordingly, we propose to take into account the productivity gains of parallelization by introducing a parallelization bonus that multiplies the credit allocated to each coauthor.It might be an idea for coauthors to indicate how they organized their work in producing the paper. However, they might systematically bias their answers. Fortunately, the number of parallel tasks is bounded by the number of coauthors because of specialization and the credit is bounded by a limiting Pareto maximum. Thus, the credit is given by (N+2)/3n for N parallel tasks. As there may be, at most, as many parallel tasks as co-authors, credit allocated to each coauthor is given by (n+2)/3n, that varies between 2/3 of a single-authored paper for two coauthors and 1/3 when the number of coauthors is very large. This is the “maximum parallelization credit” rule that we propose to apply.This new approach is feasible. It can be applied to past and present papers regardless of the agreement of publishing houses. It is fair and it rewards genuine cooperation in academic publishing.

AUTHORSHIP PATTERNS AND COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH OF ONCOLOGY RESEARCH OUTPUT IN INDIA: A SCIENTOMETRICS STUDY

The paper analysis authorship patterns and collaborative research of oncology research in Indiaas reflected by the research papers listed in Web of Science database for a period of 11 years from 2005-2015. The increased trend towards multiple authorship is predominant as compare to single authorship in case ofoncology in India.In the study, the degree of collaboration was not a constant value, it reveals varies of 0.03 to 0.16 percent and the mean quality as 0.09. The analysis found that single author papers maintained a low profile among oncology research scientists and the multi authorship pattern is expanding slowly in Indian oncology research.

Trends in Multiple Authorship among Papers in Astronomy

In an effort to document how astronomers have become increasingly collaborative, the evolution in the fraction of refereed papers published by n authors per year has been derived for four journals: The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), The Astronomical Journal, and Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A). Records compiled here for the ApJ and MNRAS extend back to 1920. The fraction of single-author papers has dropped steadily with time since 1940 in the ApJ and MNRAS, and at least since 1970 for the other two journals. Over a period of ≈20–25 years commencing around 1980, two-author papers were more common than those by any other number of authors. Both f(2) and f(3) have since gone through a maximum in all four journals, albeit at different times, while f(4) either evinces a maximum or has leveled off. The general situation for n = 5 to 9 is the same in all four journals, with the fraction of such papers increasing steadily since 1980. For values of n in this range it is found that to 0.7 in the ApJ, MNRAS, and A&A. Among papers with n = 2, 5, and 8–10, in all four journals studied the percentage of occasions in which the first and second authors have worked at the same institution exceeds 50%.

Lotka’s Law and productivity patterns of authors in biomedical science in Nigeria on HIV/AIDS

This study aims to analyze the productivity patterns of authors in Nigeria using publications indexed in Medline from 2008 to 2012 based on Lotka’s Law. Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity provides a platform for studying inequality in authors’ productivity patterns in a given field and over a specified period.,This study covers all the journal articles on HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria over a period of five years (2008-2012) in Medline, of which 512 articles were reported to have been published during this period. In this paper, 306 articles that had HIV/AIDS in the title, published in 20 journals, and articles that had HIV/AIDS as author keywords were analyzed. Because no local database that indexed biomedical literature from Nigeria was available, Medline was used, which is not only a robust and flexible database that includes articles from Nigeria but is also the largest medical database that indexes over six-and-a-half million articles from 3,400 biomedical journals.,While HIV/AIDS can be considered a global pandemic, Nigeria has the second highest number of new infections reported each year, and an estimated 3.7 per cent of the population is living with the dreaded disease. This study presents a general picture of the distribution of papers as single-author papers, multiple-author papers and the measures of co-authorship. The findings of the study reveal that in the productivity distribution for authors on the subject of HIV/AIDS, only co-authors and non-collaborative authors’ categories fit in the Lotka’s Law, whereas all-authors and first-author categories differ from the distribution of Lotka’s inverse square law.,The empirical evidence used in this paper was based on only articles of HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria that had HIV/AIDS the title. Therefore, the findings of this study might not be the generalized to other biomedical research studies.,The originality of this paper lies in the fact that the productivity pattern of each of the different author categories on the subject of HIV/AIDS is a first of its kind in the Nigerian context.

Citations, journal ranking and multiple authorships: evidence based on the top 300 papers in economics

ABSTRACTTwo propositions are examined with reference to the top 300 papers in economics journals in terms of citations as reported by RePec. The results show that while there is significant correlation between the quality of a journal and the number of top papers published in that journal, the correlation is far away from being perfect. Furthermore, citations are not related to the number of authors, which provides evidence against the proposition that multi-authored papers are typically of higher quality than single-authored papers. The results also cast a shadow of doubt on the soundness of the bucket classification of journals.

References

References

Thirty-Five Years of Peer-Reviewed Publishing by North American Economics PhDs: Quantity, Quality, and Beyond

We analyze and document various qualities of peer-reviewed journal publications listed in the EconLit database between 1980 and 2014. At least one author of the publication had to graduate from a North American economics PhD program between 1970 and 2009. We find that the share of single-author papers diminishes over time, and North American PhDs engage more in coauthored publications. While two-author papers are published on average more than three-author papers during 1980-1999, this switches after 2000. We also find that author teams containing at least one author who is a graduate of a top thirty department publish significantly more compared with other author teams. All-female and mixed-gender author teams publish significantly less compared with all-male author teams between 1980-1999, but we find no significant difference after 2000. The shares in the different fields in total publications show little variation in three decades. While male authors are over-represented in micro and macroeconomics, female authors are over-represented in labor and development economics. Some fields, such as microeconomics, econometrics, and experimental economics, are published in high quality journals, whereas macroeconomics, public economics, industrial organization, finance, health and urban economics, and development economics are published in journals that have lower quality weights than the average journal. Labor economics and economic history are published significantly better after 2000.

Attracting Attentive Academics: Paper, Person or Place?

We analyze the drivers of presence (size of audience) and participation (number of questions asked) in parallel sessions at a large economics conference, using the annual meeting of the German Economics Association in 2012 as a case study. We find that the location of the presentation is at least as important for the number of academics attending a talk as the combined effect of the person presenting and the paper presented. Being a presenter in a late morning session on the second day of a conference, close to the place where coffee is served, significantly increases the size of the audience. Single-authored papers with long titles as well as those by junior researchers attract significantly fewer attendees. When it comes to asking questions, location becomes less important, but smaller rooms lead to more questions being asked (by women). Younger researchers as well as very senior researchers attract more questions and comments. There are also interesting and sizable gender effects. Women attend research sessions more diligently than men (at any point in time only half of the registered male economists compared to nearly two-thirds of female economists are attending a session), but seem to ask fewer questions than men. Men are less likely to a ttend presentations on health, education, welfare, and development economics than women. Our findings suggest that strategic scheduling of sessions could ensure better participation at conferences. Moreover, different behaviors of men and women at conferences might contribute to the lack of women in senior scientist positions.

Authorship Pattern and Collaborative Research in the Field of Hepatitis C

This paper presents a Bibliometric analysis of the authorship pattern in the field of Hepatitis C covered in the Journal “Gastroenterology”. The literature covered for the period 2006-2010 in the Journal was considered. Citation Analysis was used for this study. Records covered in the citation from the year 1908 to 2010 were identified. This study was aimed to examine authorship pattern in the field of Hepatitis C. There were 137 articles from the source journal during the study period and these articles had a total of 5132 cited items. Hence, only authorship pattern in the field of Hepatitis C is discussed in this paper. 93.26% of the total contributions represent collaborative research. The degree of collaboration has been arrived at 0.93 during the study period. The value of Co-Authorship Index (CAI) for single author paper shows a declining trend from one block year period to another block. On the other hand, for multi authored papers, the Co-Authorship Index reveals an increasing trend.

Editorial

Editorial

Reconstructing research networks: the importance of signed offprints

The offprint is in decline as a means of scientific communication in the age of the pdf, but signed offprints are important sources of data in curatorial and historical research. In the example of Dr Charles Taylor Trechmann (1885-1964), a researcher who published only single author papers, with one exception, signed offprints reinforce our knowledge of his research network and ask questions. Recipients include authorities entrusted with describing certain specimens collected in the Antilles (L.F. Spath, T.S. Westoll, T.H. Withers), fellow conchologists (R.B. Newton) and Caribbean geologists (C.A. Matley), an F.R.S. who may have nominated Trechmann for fellowship and a...

Uncited papers, uncited authors and uncited topics: A case study in library and information science

Abstract In this article we study three types of uncitedness in Library and Information Science journals: uncitedness for articles, authors and topics. One important aspect in this study is giving accurate definitions of the indicators for measuring uncited papers, uncited authors and uncited topics. It is found that for the period 1991–2010 ratios of uncited papers fluctuate within the interval [0,0.1]. This ratio is relatively stable and not very high. Comparison of average number of pages, average number of references, average number of authors per paper and percentage of single-authored papers between cited and uncited papers shows that no matter the journal, the first three indicators’ values for uncited papers are lower, while the values of the fourth indicator are higher, than the corresponding values for cited papers. The fact that almost all uncited authors in a journal published only one paper in this journal illustrates that a journal's uncited authors are the least productive authors in this journal. Yet, productive and highly cited authors also publish uncited papers. As to why some topics fall into the group of uncited topics, the hypothesis is that the combination of unfamiliar keywords forms an unfamiliar topic, a topic authors have elected not to study further. Another assumption is that some uncited topics fall outside the field of Library and Information Science. Retrieval results in the Web of Science for a set of uncited keywords and keyword combinations support this assumption.

Authorship Pattern and Collaborative Research in the Field of Chronic Liver Diseases (1984-2013)

This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the authorship pattern in the field of Chronic Liver Diseases covered in the bibliographic database namely MEDLINE which covered in Pubmed for the period 1984-2013. MEDLINE covered the maximum of 77177 records during the study period 1984 to 2013. More than 90% of the total contributions represent collaborative research. The degree of collaboration has been arrived at 0.91. The value of Co-Authorship Index (CAI) for single author paper shows a declining trend from one block year period to another block. Similarly, for two authored papers, during 1984-1989, the CAI was 112.39, and started declining in other blocks. The CAI for multi authored papers was lowest (94.06) in the first block and enhanced to 103.72 in the fifth block period from 2008 to 2013. It indicates that the team work in Chronic Liver Diseases research is in increasing trend.

Bibliometric profile of top-cited single-author articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded

Abstract In this study, we identified and analyzed characteristics of top-cited single-author articles published in the Science Citation Index Expanded from 1991 to 2010. A top-cited single-author article was defined as an article that had been cited at least 1000 times from the time of its publication to 2012. Results showed that 1760 top-cited single-author articles were published in 539 journals listed in 130 Web of Science categories between 1901 and 2010. The top productive journal was Science and the most productive category was multidisciplinary physics. Most of the articles were not published in high-impact journals. Harvard University led all other institutions in publishing top-cited single-author articles. Nobel Prize winners contributed 7.0% of articles. In total, 72 Nobel Prize winners published 124 single-author articles. Single-authored papers published in different periods exhibited different patterns of citation trends. However, top-cited articles consistently showed repetitive peaks regardless of the time period of publication. “Theory (or theories)” was the most frequently appeared title word of all time. Leading title words varied at different time periods, and only five title words, method(s), protein(s), structure(s), molecular, and quantum consistently remained in the top 20 in different time periods.

Publish (in a group) or perish (alone): the trend from single- to multi-authorship in biological papers

The global number of papers in different areas has increased over the years. Additionally, changes in academic production scenarios, such as the decrease in the relative number of single-authored (SA) papers, have been observed. Thus, the aims of this study are to assess the trend of SA papers in four subareas of biology and also to estimate the year when 0.1 % of papers in these subareas will be SA (considering two adjusted models). The subareas investigated were Ecology, Genetics, Zoology and Botany. Our hypothesis is that all subareas show a decay in the number of SA papers. However, this pattern is more pronounced in subareas that were originally interdisciplinary (Genetics and Ecology) than in disciplinary areas (Zoology and Botany). In fact, SA papers have declined over the years in all subareas of biology, and according to the best model (Akaike Criteria), the first area that will have 0.1 % SA papers is Genetics, followed by Ecology. A partial regression indicates that the decrease in SA papers can be related to the increase in the number of authors and number of citations, suggesting the greater scientific impact of interdisciplinary research. However, other variables (e.g., political, linguistic and behavioral) can contribute to the decrease in SA papers. We lastly conclude that the number of SA papers in all subareas of biology in the coming years might continue decreasing and becoming rare, perhaps even to the point of extinction (to use a very common term in biology). In addition, all subareas of biology have become more interdisciplinary, combining the knowledge of various authors (and perhaps authors from different areas). The consequence of this approach is increasingly collaborative work, which may facilitate the increased success of the group.

Joint and multi-authored publication patterns in the Digital Humanities

The stereotype of the multi-authored Digital Humanities paper is well known but has not, until now, been empirically investigated. Here we present the results of a statistical analysis of collaborative publishing patterns in Computers and the Humanities (CHum) (1966-2004); Literary and Linguistic Computing (LLC) (1986-2011); and, as a control, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (AAAG) (1966-2013) in order to take a first step towards investigat- ing concepts of 'collaboration' in Digital Humanities. We demonstrate that in two core Digital Humanities journals, CHum and LLC, single-authored papers predominate. In AAAG, single-authored papers are also predominant. In regard to multi-authored papers the statistically significant increases are more wide- ranging in AAAG than in either LLC or CHum, with increases in all forms of multi-authorship. The author connectivity scores show that in CHum, LLC, and AAAG, there is a relatively small cohort of authors who co-publish with a wide set of other authors, and a longer tail of authors for whom co-publishing is less common.