Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Collaborations in communication: Authorship credit allocation via a weighted fractional count procedure

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

To advance bibliometric analyses in the social sciences this study applies a metric to a publication dataset to examine how authorship credit allocation on published manuscripts might influence factors related to proliferation. We utilize a weighted fraction count (WFC) procedure and discuss how this type of method may assist in the evaluation of published research in social science. Using a metric similar to that created by Abbas (2010, 2011) we evaluate a sample of 103 prolific communication scholars’ publication records and illustrate the utility of using a WFC procedure for understanding patterns and trends in communication scholarly production. A strong positive relationship between collaboration and the production of journal articles supported the notion that coauthors may increase proliferation. We also examined gender differences in publishing and coauthoring, with the only difference being that men were more likely to have a higher WFC than women. Additional research questions asked whether scholars’ faculty ranking might influence how they publish and collaborate. Patterns from examining publication data show that senior scholars may tend to publish in a capacity that illustrates they are mentoring younger scholars. The findings of this study illustrate that a WFC procedure for authorship credit allocation already being used in the sciences may be considered for examining prolific scholarship in the social sciences broadly, and the communication discipline specifically.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aad, G., Abbott, B., Abdallah, J., Abdinov, O., Aben, R., Abolins, M., AbouZeid, O. S., Abramowicz, H., Abreu, H., Abreu, R., Abulaiti, Y., Acharya, B. S., Adamczyk, L., Adams, D. L., Adelman, J., Adomeit, S., Adye, T., Affolder, A. A., Agatonovic-Jovin, T., & …Woods, N. . (2015). Combined measurement of the Higgs boson mass in pp collisions at √s=7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS and CMS experiments. Physical Review Letters, 114, 191803.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abbas, A. M. (2010). Generalized linear weights for sharing credit among multiple authors. arXiv:1012.5477v1 [cs.DL].

  • Abbas, A. M. (2011). Weighted indices for evaluating the quality of research with multiple authorship. Scientometrics, 88, 107–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amara, N., Landry, R., & Halilem, N. (2015). What can university administrators do to increase the publication and citation scores of their faculty members? Scientometrics, 103(2), 489–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed). American Psychological Association.

  • Astegiano, J., Sebastián-González, E., & Castanho, C. T. (2019). Unravelling the gender productivity gap in science: A meta-analytical review. Royal Society Open Science, 6(6), 181566. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atkin, D. J., Lagoe, C., Stephen, T. D., & Krishnan, A. (2020). The evolution of research in journalism and communication: An analysis of scholarly CIOS-indexed journals from 1915 to present. Journalism & Mass Communication Editor, 75, 453–469.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balkin, D. B., Trevino, L., Fitza, M. A., Gomez-Mejia, L. R., & Tadikonda, D. D. H. (2018). Who’s on first? Uncovering the factors that lead to first authorship in management scholarship. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018(1), 11318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, G. A., Danowski, J. A., Feeley, T. H., & Stalker, J. (2010). Measuring quality in communication doctoral education using network analysis of faculty-hiring patters. Journal of Communication, 60, 388–411.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beaver, D. D. (2001). Reflections on scientific collaboration (and its study): Past, present, and future. Scientometrics, 52(3), 365–377.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolkan, S., Griffin, D. J., Holmgren, J. L., & Hickson, M., III. (2012). Prolific scholarship in communication studies: Five years in review. Communication Education, 61(4), 380–394.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., & Mutz, R. (2015). Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(11), 2215–2222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bornmann, L., Mutz, R., & Daniel, H. D. (2010). The h index research output measurement: Two approaches to enhance its accuracy. Journal of Informetrics, 4(3), 407–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyack, K. W., Klavans, R., Sorensen, A. A., & Ioannidis, J. P. (2013). A list of highly influential biomedical researchers, 1996–2011. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 43(12), 1339–1365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burlew, L. (1991). Multiple mentor model: A conceptual framework. Journal of Career Development, 17(3), 213–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burroughs, N. F., Christophel, D., Ady, J. C., & McGreal, E. A. (1989). Top Published Authors in Communication Studies 1915–1985. Association for Communication Administration Bulletin, 67, 37–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabanac, G., Hubert, G., & Milard, B. (2015). Academic careers in computer science: Continuance and transience of lifetime co-authorships. Scientometrics, 102, 135–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connor, J. (2011). Google scholar citations open to all. Google Scholar Blog. https://scholar.googleblog.com/2011/11/google-scholar-citations-open-to-all.html

  • Daud, A., Aljohani, N. R., Abbasi, R. A., Rafique, Z., Amjad, T., Dawood, H., & Alyoubi, K. H. (2017, April). Finding rising stars in co-author networks via weighted mutual influence. In WWW ’17 Companion: Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web Companion (pp. 33–41). International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee.https://doi.org/10.1145/3041021.3054137

  • Dion, M. L., Sumner, J. L., & Mitchell, S. L. (2018). Gendered citation patterns across political science and social science methodology fields. Political Analysis, 26(3), 312–327.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ede, L., & Lunsford, A. (1983). Why write... together?. Rhetoric Review, 1(2), 150–157.

  • Edwards, R., & Barker, L. (1977). A rating of doctoral programs in s communication, 1976. Association for Communication Administration Bulletin, 20, 59–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egghe, L. (2006). Theory and practise of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69(1), 131–152.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Feeley, T. H, & Lee, S. (2015, October). Testing the Matilda Effect in communication research: Comparing citation patterns to female and male authors. University at Buffalo, SUNY. http://www.buffalo.edu/content/dam/cas/communication/documents/MatildaEffect.pdf

  • Feeley, T. H., Lee, S., & Moon, S. I. (2018). A journal-level analysis of progress in transplantation. Progress in Transplantation, 28(1), 19–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fell, C. B., & König, C. J. (2016). Is there a gender difference in scientific collaboration? A scientometric examination of co-authorships among industrial-organizational psychologists. Scientometrics, 108(1), 113–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furnham, A. (2021). Publish or perish: Rejection, scientometrics and academic success. Scientometrics, 126, 843–847.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, D., Bolkan, S., & Dahlbach, B. J. (2018). Scholarly productivity in communication studies: Five-year review 2012–2016. Communication Education, 67(1), 88–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, D. J., Bolkan, S., Holmgren, J. L., & Tutzauer, F. (2016). Central journals and authors in communication using a publication network. Scientometrics, 106(1), 91–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gingras, Y. (2016). Bibliometrics and Research Evaluation: Uses and Abuses. MIT Press.

  • Gomez-Ferri, J., Gonzalez-Alcaide, G., & Llopis-Goig, R. (2019). Measuring dissatisfaction with coauthorship: An empirical approach based on the researchers’ perception. Journal of Informetrics, 13, 100980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson, M., III., Self, W. R., Johnston, J. R., Peacock, C., & Bodon, J. (2009). Prolific research in communication studies: Retrospective and prospective views. Communication Research Reports, 26(4), 337–346.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson, M., III., Stacks, D. W., & Amsbary, J. H. (1989). An analysis of prolific scholarship in speech communication, 1915–1985: Toward a yardstick for measuring productivity. Communication Education, 38(3), 230236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson, M., III., Stacks, D. W., & Amsbary, J. H. (1993). Active prolific scholars in communication studies: Analysis of research productivity II. Communication Education, 42(3), 224–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickson, M., III., Turner, J., & Bodon, J. (2003). Research productivity in communication: An analysis, 1996–2001. Communication Research Reports, 20(4), 308–319.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16569–16572.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Hsu, J., & Huang, D. (2011). Correlation between impact and collaboration. Scientometrics, 86, 317–324.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaari, J. (2019). Publication numbers are increasing at American research universities. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 14(4), 185–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaur, J., Radicchi, F., & Menczer, F. (2013). Universality of scholarly impact metrics. Journal of Informetrics, 7(4), 924–932.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. (2019). Author-based analysis of conference versus journal publication in computer science. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 70, 71–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J., & Kim, J. (2015). Rethinking the comparison of coauthorship credit allocation schemes. Journal of Informetrics, 9, 667–673.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobloch-Westerwick, S., & Glynn, C. J. (2013). The Matilda effect—role congruity effects on scholarly communication: A citation analysis of Communication Research and Journal of Communication articles. Communication Research, 40(1), 3–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Glynn, C. J., & Huge, M. (2013). The Matilda effect in science communication: An experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Science Communication, 35(5), 603–625.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer, M. W. (2012). Assessing the validity and value of program and faculty productivity assessments. The Electronic Journal of Communication, 22.

  • Kramer, M. W., Hess, J. A., & Reid, L. D. (2007). Trends in communication scholarship: An analysis of four representative NCA and ICA journals over the last 70 years. The Review of Communication, 7(3), 229–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, S., & Bozeman, B. (2005). The impact of research collaboration on scientific productivity. Social Studies of Science, 35(5), 673–702.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, K., Jung, H., & Song, M. (2016). Subject–method topic network analysis in communication studies. Scientometrics, 109(3), 1761–1787.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leydesdorff, L., & Park, H. W. (2017). Full and fractional counting in bibliometric networks. Journal of Informetrics, 11, 117–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, W., Aste, T., Caccioli, F., & Livan, G. (2019). Early coauthorship with top scientists predicts success in academic careers. Nature Communications, 10, 5170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsey, D. (1980). Production and citation measures in the sociology of science: The problem of multiple authorship. Social Studies of Science, 10, 145–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, C., Olivola, C. Y., & Kovács, B. (2017). Coauthorship trends in the field of management: Facts and perceptions. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 16(4), 509–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mathews, P. (2003). Academic mentoring: Enhancing the use of scarce resources. Educational Management and Administration, 31(3), 313–334.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maury, K., Olszewski, W. & Sebberson, D. (1995). The tithing of higher education, out-of-pocket spending by faculty. A research report. Minnesota State University System. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED388153.pdf

  • Meho, L. I. (2020). Highly prestigious international academic awards and their impact on university rankings. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(2), 824–848. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00045

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mishra, S., Fegley, B. D., Diesner, J., & Torvik, V. I. (2018). Self-citation is the hallmark of productive authors, of any gender. PLoS ONE, 13, e0195773.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, D. S. (2019). The precarious new faculty majority: Communication and instruction research and contingent labor in higher education. Communication Education, 68(2), 235–245.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, M. E. J. (2001a). The structure of scientific collaboration networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98, 404–409.

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Newman, M. E. J. (2001b). Scientific collaboration networks. II. Shortest paths, weighted networks, and centrality. Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 64, 016132.

  • Parish, A. J., Boyack, K. W., & Ioannidis, J. P. (2018). Dynamics of coauthorship and productivity across different fields of scientific research. PloS one, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189742

  • Perianes-Rodriguez, A., & Ruiz-Castillo, J. (2015). Multiplicative versus fractional counting methods for co-authored publications. The case of 500 universities in the Leiden ranking. Journal of Informetrics, 9, 974–989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perianes-Rodriguez, A., Waltman, L., & van Eck, N. J. (2016). Constructing bibliometric networks: A comparison between full and fractional counting. Journal of Informetrics, 10, 1178–1195.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, H., & Van Raan, A. (1991). Structuring scientific—activities by co-author analysis: An exercise on a university faculty level. Scientometrics, 20(1), 235–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, A. (1969). Statistical bibliography or bibliometrics. Journal of Documentation, 25(4), 348–349.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rice, R. E., Borgman, C. L., & Reeves, B. (1988). Citation networks of communication journals, 1977–1985 cliques and positions, citations made and citations received. Human Communication Research, 15, 256–283.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossiter, M. W. (1993). The Matthew Matilda effect in science. Social Studies of Science, 23(2), 325–341.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salerno, P. E., Páez-Vacas, M., Guayasamin, J. M., & Stynoski, J. L. (2019). Male principal investigators (almost) don’t publish with women in ecology and zoology. PloS one, 14(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218598

  • Silagadze, Z. K. (2010). Citation entropy and research impact estimation. Acta Physica Polonica B, 41(11), 2325–2333.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sivertsen, G., Rousseau, R., & Zhang, L. (2019). Measuring scientific contributions with modified fractional counting. Journal of Informetrics, 13, 679–694.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueba, F. T., & Guerrero, H. (2004). A robust formula to credit authors for their publications. Scientometrics, 60, 181–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uslu, B., & Welch, A. (2018). The influence of universities’ organizational features on professorial intellectual leadership. Studies in Higher Education, 43(3), 571–585.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waltman, L. (2012). An empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing. Journal of Informetrics, 6, 700–711.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waltman, L. (2016). A review of the literature on citation impact indicators. Journal of Informetrics, 10, 365–391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Way, S. F., Morgan, A. C., Clauset, A., & Larremore, D. B. (2017). The misleading narrative of the canonical faculty productivity trajectory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114, E9216–E9223.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu, J., Ding, Y., Song, M., & Chambers, T. (2016). Author credit-assignment schemas: A comparison and analysis. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67, 1973–1989.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Studies, The University of Alabama, Box 870172, AL, 35487-0172, Tuscaloosa, US

    Darrin J. Griffin, Samuel D. Hakim & Andrew J. Laningham

  2. Communication Department, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, US

    Zachary W. Arth

  3. Department of Advertising and Public Relations, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, US

    Brian C. Britt

  4. University Libraries, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, US

    James N. Gilbreath

  5. Department of Communication Studies, The University of Texas At Austin, Austin, TX, US

    Mackenzie P. Pike

  6. Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Methodology, and Counseling, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, US

    Fareed Bordbar

  7. Mathematics Department, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, US

    Sage Hart

  8. Department of Communication Studies, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, US

    San Bolkan

Authors
  1. Darrin J. Griffin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zachary W. Arth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Samuel D. Hakim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Brian C. Britt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. James N. Gilbreath
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Mackenzie P. Pike
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Andrew J. Laningham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Fareed Bordbar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Sage Hart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. San Bolkan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Darrin J. Griffin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Griffin, D.J., Arth, Z.W., Hakim, S.D. et al. Collaborations in communication: Authorship credit allocation via a weighted fractional count procedure. Scientometrics 126, 4355–4372 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03927-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03927-w

Keywords

Search

Navigation