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The goal of the study was to determine the underlying processes leading to the observed collaborator distribution in modern scientific fields, with special attention to nonpower-law behavior. Nanoscience is used as a case study of a modern interdisciplinary field and its coauthorship network for 2000–2004 period is constructed from the NanoBank database. We find three collaboration modes that correspond to three distinct ranges in the distribution of collaborators: (1) for authors with fewer than 20 collaborators (the majority) preferential attachment does not hold and they form a log-normal “hook” instead of a power law; (2) authors with more than 20 collaborators benefit from preferential attachment and form a power law tail; and (3) authors with between 250 and 800 collaborators are more frequent than expected because of the hyperauthorship practices in certain subfields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies on coauthorship networks focus on network topology and network statistical mechanics. This article takes a different approach by studying micro-level network properties with the aim of applying centrality measures to impact analysis. Using coauthorship data from 16 journals in the field of library and information science (LIS) with a time span of 20 years (1988–2007), we construct an evolving coauthorship network and calculate four centrality measures (closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, degree centrality, and PageRank) for authors in this network. We find that the four centrality measures are significantly correlated with citation counts. We also discuss the usability of centrality measures in author ranking and suggest that centrality measures can be useful indicators for impact analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International co-authorship relations and university–industry–government (Triple Helix) relations have hitherto been studied separately. Using Japanese publication data for the 1981–2004 period, we were able to study both kinds of relations in a single design. In the Japanese file, 1,277,030 articles with at least one Japanese address were attributed to the three sectors, and we know additionally whether these papers were coauthored internationally. Using the mutual information in three and four dimensions, respectively, we show that the Japanese Triple-Helix system has been continuously eroded at the national level. However, since the mid-1990s, international coauthorship relations have contributed to a reduction of the uncertainty at the national level. In other words, the national publication system of Japan has developed a capacity to retain surplus value generated internationally. In a final section, we compare these results with an analysis based on similar data for Canada. A relative uncoupling of national university–industry–government relations because of international collaborations is indicated in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the collaboration trends, authorship and keywords of all research articles published in the Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). Comparing the articles between two 10-year periods, namely, 1988–1997 and 1998–2007, the three-fold objectives are to analyze the shifts in (a) authors' collaboration trends (b) top authors, their affiliations as well as the pattern of coauthorship among them, and (c) top keywords and the subdisciplines from which they emerge. The findings reveal a distinct tendency towards collaboration among authors, with external collaborations becoming more prevalent. Top authors have grown in diversity from those being affiliated predominantly with library/information-related departments to include those from information systems management, information technology, businesss, and the humanities. Amid heterogeneous clusters of collaboration among top authors, strongly connected cross-disciplinary coauthor pairs have become more prevalent. Correspondingly, the distribution of top keywords' occurrences that leans heavily on core information science has shifted towards other subdisciplines such as information technology and sociobehavioral science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, for any group of authors, we define three different h-indices. First, there is the successive h-index h2 based on the ranked list of authors and their h-indices h1 as defined by Schubert (2007). Next, there is the h-index hP based on the ranked list of authors and their number of publications. Finally, there is the h-index hC based on the ranked list of authors and their number of citations. We present formulae for these three indices in Lotkaian informetrics from which it also follows that h2 < hp < hc. We give a concrete example of a group of 167 authors on the topic “optical flow estimation.” Besides these three h-indices, we also calculate the two-by-two Spearman rank correlation coefficient and prove that these rankings are significantly related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a team-based model of researchers in a specialty and investigates the manifestation of such teams in a specialty's literature. The proposed qualitative behavioral model, with its mathematical expression as a growth model, is significant because it simultaneously describes the two phenomena of collaboration and author productivity (Lotka's law) in a specialty. The model is nested: A team process models the creation of research teams and the success-breeds-success process of their production of articles, while at a lower level the productivity of authors within teams is also modeled as a success-breeds-success process. Interteam collaboration (weak ties) is modeled as random events. This simple growth model is shown to faithfully mimic six network metrics of bipartite article-author networks. The model is demonstrated on three example article collections from specialties that have a wide range of degree of collaboration: (a) a distance education collection with low collaboration degree, (b) a complex networks collection with typical collaboration degree, and (c) an atrial ablation collection with heavy collaboration degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I draw on interview data gathered in the High Energy Physics (HEP) community to address recent problems stemming from collaborative research activity that stretches the boundaries of the traditional scientific authorship model. While authorship historically has been attributed to individuals and small groups, thereby making it relatively easy to tell who made major contributions to the work, recent collaborations have involved hundreds or thousands of individuals. Printing all of these names in the author list on articles can mean difficulties in discerning the nature or extent of individual contributions, which has significant implications for hiring and promotion procedures. This also can make collaborative research less attractive to scientists at the outset of a project. I discuss the issues that physicists are considering as they grapple with what it means to be “an author,” in addition to suggesting that future work in this area draw on the emerging economics literature on “mechanism design” in considering how credit can be attributed in ways that both ensure proper attribution and induce scientists to put forth their best effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors assess the number of coauthors in articles published by authors affiliated with domestic (Croatian) and foreign (non-Croatian) institutions in the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ) and investigate the increase in the number of coauthors after inclusion of the journal in the Current Contents (CC) bibliographic database (Thomson ISI, Philadelphia, PA) in 1999. They analyzed 761 articles published in the CMJ between 1992 and 2003, and determined the average number of authors per article, authors' country of origin, and the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the authors' country. The average number of authors in articles written by authors affiliated with domestic institutions was significantly larger in almost all journal sections. The increase in the number of domestic coauthors was more pronounced after inclusion of the journal in the CC database. The number of domestic coauthors published in the Clinical section increased from 4.2 ± 2.1 to 5.1 ± 2.3. There was also an increase in coauthors published in the Public Health section—from 3.1 ± 1.9 to 4.1 ± 1.9. The results of the study imply that authors' adherence to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria depends on the size of the scientific community and that adherence is poor among domestic authors publishing in a small, national medical journal outside of mainstream science. An increased number of coauthors in articles published by authors affiliated with domestic institutions does not necessarily imply authorship misconduct but it suggests involvement of an appreciable number of authors who made few or no substantial contributions to the research. This discounts two main purposes of scientific authorship: to confer credit and denote responsibility for performed research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twentieth century saw the progressive collectivization of science-dramatic growth in teamwork in general and large-scale collaboration in particular. Cognitive partnering in the conduct of research and scholarship has become commonplace, and this trend is reflected in rates of co-authorship and sub-authorship collaboration. The effects of these developments on academic writing are discussed and theorized in terms of distributed cognition. In some scientific fields, high-energy physics being a case in point, collaboration is a well-documented fact of life. Indeed, large-scale, distributed collaborations and "hyperauthorship" are defining characteristics of this disciplinary tribe's work practices. But one does not need to resort to the usual suspects to support these assertions. Numerous studies have shown, for example, the growth in levels of multiple authorship in recent decades, the most visible and concrete operationalization of scientific collaboration. This is not only true for the physical and life sciences, but also the social sciences, and, even, to some extent, the humanities. Though co-authorship is a common reward for specialized collaboration, it should be noted that not all forms of collaboration result in formal recognition.

We chronicle the use of acknowledgments in 20th century chemistry by analyzing and classifying over 2,000 specimens covering a 100-year period. Our results show that acknowledgment has gradually established itself as a constitutive element of academic writing-one that provides a revealing insight into the structural nature of subauthorship collaboration in science. Complementary data on rates of coauthorship are also presented to highlight the growing importance of teamwork and the increasing division of labor in contemporary chemistry. The results of this study are compared with the findings of a parallel study of collaboration in both the social sciences and the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We chronicle the use of acknowledgments in 20th-century scholarship by analyzing and classifying more than 4,500 specimens covering a 100-year period. Our results show that the intensity of acknowledgment varies by discipline, reflecting differences in prevailing sociocognitive structures and work practices. We demonstrate that the acknowledgment has gradually established itself as a constitutive element of academic writing, one that provides a revealing insight into the nature and extent of subauthorship collaboration. Complementary data on rates of coauthorship are also presented to highlight the growing importance of collaboration and the increasing division of labor in contemporary research and scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposes an XML-like contribution mark-up scheme for electronic documents. Usefulness of mark-up scheme; Elements likely to be found in a contribution taxonomy; Criteria for authorship based on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE); Comparison between the proposed mark-up scheme and the ICMJE scheme.