Challenges of Ranking Authors in Collaborative Research
Discuss about the Impact Of Writer Position In Co-Authorships On The Perceptions Of Review Committees On Their Contribution And Consideration For Promotion Within The Acis Community.
Due to the pressures to publish and the need for collaboration, it is becoming increasingly common to have more than one author producing an article. The average original research article has been shown to have five authors on average. There is a growing list of collaborators authoring a research papers, but this again raises fundamental questions regarding the order of authors in the research paper and how this impacts the perceptions of readers (Sauermann and Haeussler, 2017); (McDonald et al., 2010). Having a handful of authors authoring a research manuscript creates the inclination to create a list of author names based on their contribution work to the article. However, in the event that the list of authors is long, then what happens? Because ranking the authors in terms of their work contributed to the article would be highly impractical especially if the reality is that all the authors contributed relatively equal amounts of work. Further, in the event of interdisciplinary research which has become increasingly common nowadays, how can the contribution of one individual be deemed to have a greater significance that those of other contributors (Garber, 2010), and how does this affect the perceptions of readers? The ACIS is an annual conference for information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) academics and scholars as well as professionals affiliated with the AAIS (Australian Association for Information Systems). ACIS offers a platform for panel discussions and for information systems research papers that have been peer reviewed to be presented.
General
How does the ranking of authors in a research article impact how the readers of these articles perceive the authors in terms of contribution, seniority, and contribution to the research? This general question is related to the content in the introduction section because generally, it is considered that the first and last authors have made the largest contribution to an article. Yet, it is not logical, or even fair, in the event where there are many authors and if the contributions made are actually almost similar. As such, a more specific research questions that will be crux of this proposed research are framed below;
Specific
How does author order in a research article influence the perception of peer reviewers of that article on their contribution within the ACIS?
Growing Trends in Co-Authorship Across Various Fields
Does the rank order of authors within the ACIS Community influence decisions on their promotion by reviewing and promotion panels?
The conceptual framework to be used for the study and to explain how author ranking affects tenure and promotion chair behaviors is based on planned theory of behavior; attitude caused by behavioral beliefs and outcome evaluations, as well as subjective norms (motivation to comply and normative beliefs), and perceived behavioral control based on perception result in behavioral intentions. The factors cause tenure and promotion chairs and readers to have a behavioral intention based on perceptions that high ranked authors are more senior or contributed more, and so their behavior is to promote those authors ranked high in co-authored material. This is depicted in the image below;
The publication record of an author is a major determinant on how fast an author/ researcher rises in the academic ladder. The quality of authored work matters a lot, so does the quantity of the authorship. When a job applicant has a long list of authored papers, the selection and appointment committees tend to be more impressed than when another applicant with significantly fewer publications applies for the same job. As such, there is increased pressure for authors and academics to churn out more research articles in peer reviewed journals; this pressure has resulted in authors ‘splitting’ research articles into several minimum publishable ‘smaller’ article units just to be seen to have more articles and research work under their belt. The result is that there are several duplicate studies that do not add much value to academia and the existing body of research. As such, a new approach to padding authorship is co-authorship, where authors collaborate with others to publish articles in peer reviewed journals. This works this way; assuming an author can write a single research paper in a year; by teaming up with another researcher in the same filed, they get their names on the papers of each author, by contributing roughly half or a more of each researchers’ paper; the result is that they end up with their respective names appearing in two articles in a year instead of one. And this is a growing trend; a survey by the Economist (2014) of about 34 million articles and research papers using SCOPUS, the largest citations and abstracts catalogue of peer reviewed articles published between 1996 and 2005 revealed that the average number of author per articles rose from 3.2 to 4.4.
Impact of Order of Authorship on Academic Careers
Often, scientific articles are co-authored by multiple researchers; co-authorship is also common in the social sciences as well, but more prevalent within the sciences and engineering and technology sectors. Even the humanities has not been left behind where co-authorship is becoming ever more common, despite the humanities having for long been prized for single authorship articles (Brown, 2014). No matter the field of research, co-authorship adds greater value and benefits when the roles of each of the contributing authors is clearly defined and all participants agree to those roles. Within humanities, co-authorship usually entails intimate partnerships among the researchers, who explore sources jointly, investigate questions, and finally undertake their analysis (Brown, 2014). In the biomedical and natural sciences, however, tasks are usually distributed among a larger group of authors/ researchers. Often, the individuals listed as the coauthors have made contributions that are distinctly different in developing an article. For instance, one person may have originated the research idea and then sought help in designing the experiment and data collection from a larger team. If the study was funded by an external organization, the person that sought the grant also played an important role in getting the article published. Several authors can draft different sections of the article; the lead author normally is responsible for getting the different drafted sections into harmony with the others and smoothing out any irrelevant parts and the article’s flow.
Over time, the expectations of who ought to be the first or lead author has changed; presently, the role of the lead author goes to the team agrees is the originator of the research topic; but very senior researchers can also be listed as the second and third contributors behind the lead researcher. It is also possible that the lead researcher is much junior to the other contributors to the article. In some fields, a very different approach is taken; in physics and mathematics, the authors are usually listed in alphabetical order. As such, at the beginning, the team should come to an agreement on whom the lead author is so that bitter disagreements are avoided during the listing of authors. Listing authors alphabetically may mean the least contributor is listed first; a factor that leads to misconception on their seniority when reviewers appraise authors for the purposes of promotion (Brown, 2014). In some disciplines, senior researchers (lecturers) develop projects and then publish the results with students as a form of mentorship and distributing the research workload. While guidance by a senior research has many benefits, there are downsides to this approach; such relations are usually asymmetrical in the context of their power status. Still, the first listed author plays a very important role as they usually initiate and manage the entire research and submission of the article.
Assessment of Scientists for Promotion and Funding
It is also well known that especially humanities papers have multiple authors; an empirical investigation through a statistical analysis of collaborative patterns of publishing between 1966 and 2004 in Chum (Computers and Humanities), LLC (Literary and Linguistic Consulting) between 1986 and 2011; in AAG (Annals of the Association of American Geographers) between 1966 and 2013, which was used as a control, established that single authors dominated the humanities papers. The research findings also showed a relatively small cohort of co-publishing and co-authoring in AAAG, Chum, and LLC (Nyhan and Duke-Williams, 2014). Senior academics have been accused for taking much of the credit in authored and published articles while junior researchers are held back due to the ordering of the names in jointly authored papers and articles, based on a global study (Pells, 2017). Co-authorship between two or even more researchers is common mainly in medicine and the sciences, a survey of 894 researchers in the social sciences and humanities in 62 countries established that these fields are experiencing increasing commonality of co-authorship. 74% of the respondents in the study said that papers in their area of study usually had more than a single author, and over half the respondents said co-authorship is more common than ever as opposed to the start of their careers. The most prevalent challenge in co-authorship is how to rank the list of the co-authors when the paper is being published and determining the author deserving the credit for authorship.
The order of names in an academic paper matter a significant deal; if an author fails to take the first position in authorship, the result may be that their careers in academia is held back a great deal, especially with regard to credits for authorship when their CV’s are reviewed by search committees (Pell, 2017). Invitations to speak in conferences might also be based on the order of authorship in research articles; further, quoting a publication by many authors y other researchers usually makes them prone to the ‘et al.’ effect, so other authors fail to get any credit, despite possibly having made significant contributions to the study. The assessment of scientists for purposes of promotion relies a great deal on publication of peer reviewed journals; this also affects their tenure and funding for research projects. There are also different approaches with which one can become an author of a peer reviewed journal, and not all are looked at as equal contributors to the article. Those authors listed first or last in the article byline are usually considered as the major contributors and the contribution of authors in the middle, based on their distance from the first or last authors in relation to their contribution is not exactly known (Wren et al., 2007). It is however, impossible to determine the contribution of an author in a published article objectively.
Importance of Clearly Defining Each Author’s Role
Presumably, a large number of authors in an article dilute the relative credit each contributor is awarded; although this effect has not as yet been scientifically confirmed or quantified. Yet, the number of authors for each peer reviewed article in the medical filed and sciences is growing to a point where it is being termed as ‘author inflation’. The trend is increasing in several research areas and fields largely due to the increasing pressure to publish, and the research expertise specialization. Other contributing factors to the concept of ‘author inflation’ include honorary authorships, and the need for greater collaboration. While some organizations have defined their criteria for authorship and co-authorship, many define the criteria differently (Wren et al., 2007). Without explicitly stating concerning the contributions of each author, readers, including committees that promote authors implicitly apportion greater authorship credit to the first (or last authors) with increasing frequency, without any well-defined standard for apportioning credit. Authorship plays a central role in scientific research and is associated with several rewards as well as responsibilities. While there are various guidelines on authorship, the actual contribution of authors is usually ambiguous, leaving judgment to be done implicitly by readers and promotional committees. Limited or inconsistent contributions are a major threat to authors as authorship gets devalued as a consequence; the responsibility for published material as well as intellectual currency of the authors is diminished. This is seen increasingly in several other fields, including in ecological fields of research (Logan, Bean and Myers, 2017).
The assessment criteria of research performance to an extent, contribute to the phenomenon of ‘author inflation’ for each publication. Harmonic counting is among the superior methods among the various indicators and methods used in evaluating the quality of research undertaken by multiple authors; harmonic counting is superior in the context of scientific ethics, calculation, and application. Despite these, there are factors in harmonic counting that are still to be well understood; the scientists perceptions concerning the equally credited authors (ECA) and corresponding authors. So while the method is better in evaluating research articles quality, it still fails in the sphere of perception; perception is a human factor influenced by many subjective factors, and so, cannot be objective (Jian and Xiaoli, 2013). This can be discouraging, especially to junior authors, and lead to a lopsided view of authors and their promotion and accreditation for contribution to research and authorships. Most scientific research is undertaken by teams, and for the longest time, the contributions of individual team members have been inferred by observers through the interpretation of author order in the published material. This approach has elicited increasing concerns, and journals are now adopting a policy of requiring all authors to disclose the efforts of individual authors in co-authored articles (Sauermann and Haeussler, 2017).
However, while this is a laudable effort, it is still not clear how the requirement for disclosure of contribution improve on the conventional approach of inferring the contribution of individual contributors. Further, there is scant evidence on how the statements on contribution are written and how the readers use them; in many cases, many readers, with the exception of review and promotion committees do not read the fine print on the contribution of various authors as written. Research among authors within the ACIS shows that collaboration in research tends to occur between authors in within similar institutions and regions. There is a tendency within the ACIS for co-authors to collaborate within the borders of institutional silos, even though evidence shows that there is wider collaboration among authors (Kim and Perez, 2015). Using a social network analysis approach on data extracted from Endnote, a citation portal on co-authorship within the ACIS Cheong and Corbitt (2009), established that the ACIS community is a healthy small world community that was constantly evolving in order to facilitate an environment supporting sharing of ideas and collaboration between researchers. The researchers further established that, unlike other similar communities such as the ECIS (European Conference), the ACIS was not dominated by a few major researchers as the study was able to identify a significant number of popular researchers within the ACIS (Cheong and Corbitt, 2009).
This section discusses the overall methodology to be used to undertake this research; it describes the research design, the sample to be used, the methods for data collection, , as well as the how the data will be analyzed based on the findings. The use of a suitable research methodology has led to an increase in pressure on researchers in recent decades, because of the need for researchers to be more productive. As such, many researchers, motivated by the credits associated with research and the rush for research funding has led them to fast track research, often with results that are conflicting. The quality of high research not only depends upon the specific statement of research problems without ambiguity, but on the fact that the method and approach used is a good fit for solving the stated research problem, the methods, and the research paradigm (Müller-Staub, 2012)
Research design refers to the overall approach and strategy used by a researcher to integrate the various components in a study in a manner that is coherent, logical, and thereby, making sure that the research problem is effectively addressed. The research design pertains to the blue print for that particular research in the context of how data will be collected, measurements to be used, and how the collected data will be analyzed. The research design ensures that the obtained evidence during research can effectively address the research problem in a logical manner and without ambiguity. For this paper, a descriptive research design is adopted. The descriptive research design helps to provide answer to the questions of what, who, where, when, and how; questions that are typically associated with a specific research problem. The descriptive study is not able to ascertain the ‘why’ type of questions ; but nonetheless, descriptive research is used get information concerning the present status of the phenomena under question, and to describe what is in existence, with respect to variables or conditions underlying a given situation. In using the deceptive research design, the author proposes to use a quantitative research approach through a primary research approach and data collection. Primary research approach has been chosen because it will ensure the purposes of this research and the research problem are addressed directly, based on findings from undertaking the research. The primary research will be conducted through a questionnaire developed with relevant questions that will then be pre-tested; the questions are based on a five point Likert scale with fill in question formats based on percentage scales. The research will evaluate three types of authorship categories of credit within the ACIS; initial project work conception (IC), supervision (S), and work performed (WP).
The research will use a sample of peer reviewers and review and promotional committees from Australia; these are senior academic staff that review journals, appraise scholars, and promote them in academia base d on their contribution to the body of research and competence. This research will undertake a survey of tenure and promotion committee chair persons to assess how they perceive the contributions of authors based on the position of the authors in research articles. Further, the impacts of these perceptions on their decisions during review and promotion will also be evaluated through the survey.
The data will be collected through self-administered questionnaires sent to the respondents through the internet. Basically, an online survey tool will be used and the lnk to the survey sent to willing contributors through e-mail or social media channels; the respondents will then just click the choices they most relate to and the tool, will automatically collect and collate the feedback. Before sending the questionnaire, the respondents will be contacted initially and requested to participate in the research, with the purpose of the research explained, observing ethical issues and guidelines during the research. The respondents will be given a two week period during which they should respond to the questionnaire; any late responses will not be included in the analysis data, neither will half-filled or non-filled out questionnaires
The data will be analyzed descriptively, through the use of graphical methods to show trends as well as through the use of statistical analyses. The author credit will be calculated as the mean of percentages assigned to the three categories of author credit. Statistical methods will be used to establish the significance of the research findings
This research will add to the existing body of research in the topic area, as well as help understand how matters of perception influence the decisions of review and promotion committee chairs when evaluating scholars based on the author position in the bylines of research articles. The findings will also help in developing better methods with which author contributions can be evaluated in a better way so as to imprint meritocracy in scholarly work and crediting of research authors, as well as make the promotion process more meritorious.
The research and its findings are limited to the effectiveness of the overall research design and the overall research approach used. Further, because this is a descriptive research design in which the perceptions of the sample (respondents’) are sought, the research is limited to the accuracy, veracity, and thoughts given by the respondents to the research survey questions and their receptive answers. Further, the research sis limited to the to the suitability of the survey questions for the purposes of the research.
While undertaking this research proposal, the author encountered various ethical issues, especially in the literature review section where some authors were not cited; this was solved by reviewing all materials used and citing them properly to credit the sources. Further, there was a tendency to use some material in a verbose manner as some were quite technical; this was overcome by paraphrasing and rephrasing, while maintaining the original meaning and context
References
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Garber, J. (2010). Conflicts of Interest, Authorship, and Disclosures in Industry-Related Scientific Publications. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 85(2), p.196.
Jian, D. and Xiaoli, T. (2013). Perceptions of author order versus contribution among researchers with different professional ranks and the potential of harmonic counts for encouraging ethical co-authorship practices. Scientometrics, 96(1), pp.277-295.
Kim, J. and Perez, C. (2015). Co-Authorship Network Analysis in Industrial Ecology Research Community. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(2), pp.222-235.
Logan, J., Bean, S. and Myers, A. (2017). Correction: Author contributions to ecological publications: What does it mean to be an author in modern ecological research?. PLOS ONE, 12(10), p.e0187321.
McDonald, R., Neff, K., Rethlefsen, M. and Kallmes, D. (2010). Effects of Author Contribution Disclosures and Numeric Limitations on Authorship Trends. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 85(10), pp.920-927.
Müller-Staub, M. (2012). The importance of clear methods descriptions in research papers. [online] Acta Paulista de Enfermagem. Available at: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-21002012000900001 [Accessed 1 Jun. 2018].
Nyhan, J. and Duke-Williams, O. (2014). Joint and multi-authored publication patterns in the Digital Humanities. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 29(3), pp.387-399.
Pells, R. (2018). Senior academics ‘take too much credit’ in co-authorship. [online] Times Higher Education (THE). Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/senior-academics-take-too-much-credit-co-authorship [Accessed 1 Jun. 2018].
Sauermann, H. and Haeussler, C. (2017). Authorship and contribution disclosures. Science Advances, 3(11), p.e1700404.
Sauermann, H. and Haeussler, C. (2017). Authorship and contribution disclosures. Science Advances, 3(11), p.e1700404.
‘The Economist’ (2014). Why research papers have so many authors. [online] The Economist. Available at: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2016/11/24/why-research-papers-have-so-many-authors [Accessed 1 Jun. 2018].
Wren, J., Kozak, K., Johnson, K., Deakyne, S., Schilling, L. and Dellavalle, R. (2007). The write position. A survey of perceived contributions to papers based on byline position and number of authors. EMBO reports, [online] 8(11), pp.988-991. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2247376/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2018].
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