Journal
INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT
Volume 59, Issue 3, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2022.102944
Keywords
Contributorship; Co-contributorship network; Author byline orders; Author contribution statement
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [B220201058]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [72004054]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study found that the order of names in article bylines usually represented authors' contributions, with versatiles more likely to be first authors. The division of labor in larger teams varied between disciplines.
Scientific collaboration empowers scholars to build larger teams and produce more high-quality knowledge. However, with insufficient microscopic examination of scientific collaboration, i.e., the interactions between collaborators, little is currently known about whether the contributing roles of collaborators are fairly and accurately represented on the bylines of scientific papers. To fill this gap, the current study examines how the different roles of collaborators are connected to the order of their names in article bylines across disciplines and team sizes. A dataset of 105,192 articles containing author contribution statements was compiled and analyzed to investigate the byline order distributions of three different contributing roles: versatiles, specialists, and team players. We discovered that, across all disciplines, the order of names in article bylines usually represented authors' contributions. Versatiles were more likely to be first authors in the byline, followed by teamplayers and specialists. We also found that the division of labor in larger teams varied between disciplines. In some subjects, the three contributing roles disappeared as the size of teams increased, while in others, they remained distinct. Finally, larger team sizes were associated with a weaker relationship between byline ordering and contributing roles. These findings advance studies of scientific collaboration and enrich the literature on the evaluation of scientific performance.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available