Authorship Norms and Project Structures in Science

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5338084
AutoresSahra Jabbehdari (MuleSoft, Atlanta, GA, USA), John P Walsh (0000-0001-8568-9289, Georgia Institute of Technology, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume42
Fascículo5
Páginas872-900
Data de publicação2017-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243917697192
OpenAlexW2600783107
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas15
Referências citadas43

Scientific authorship has become a contested terrain in contemporary science. Based on a survey of authors across fields, we measure the likelihood of specialist authors (sometimes called "guest" authors): people who only made specialized contributions, such as data, materials, or funding; and "nonauthor collaborators" (sometimes referred to as "ghost" authors): those who did significant work on the project but do not appear as authors, across different research contexts, including field, size of the project team, commercial orientation, impact of publication, and organization of the collaboration. We find that guest and ghost authors are common, with about one-third of publications having at least one specialist author and over half having at least one nonauthor collaborator. We see significant cross-field variations in both overall rates and types of specialist authors and nonauthor collaborators. We find there are generally fewer specialist authors among highly cited papers and more graduate student nonauthor collaborators in single location projects. The results suggest authorship practices vary across fields, and by project characteristics, complicating the use of authorship lists as a basis for evaluation (especially when comparing across fields or types of projects). We discuss implications of these findings for interpreting author lists in the context of science policy

Data science · Sociology · Academic Publishing and Open Access · Computer Science · Engineering · History · Research Data Management Practices · scientometrics and bibliometrics research