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A geometric counting method adaptive to the author number

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  • Liu, Xuan Zhen
  • Fang, Hui

Abstract

With increasing research collaboration and the increasing average author number of academic papers, a reasonable counting method is needed to allocate paper credit to authors. This work analyses the features of existing counting methods, focusing on the differences between the credit assigned to each author. Considering that the ratio of credit between neighbouring authors allocated by a rational geometric counting method should change with the author number, we propose an adaptive geometric counting method in which the ratio of the credit of the first author to that of the last author equals the author number, as with fixed-type arithmetic counting and harmonic counting. The results show that the adaptive geometric counting method fits best with the existing empirical dataset among the fixed-type counting methods. In addition to keeping the same ratio of credit between neighbouring authors, the credit allocated to the authors changes with the author rank more evenly with this method than with other counting methods, except arithmetic counting, whose result is inherently linear but does not maintain the same ratio of credit between neighbouring authors.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Xuan Zhen & Fang, Hui, 2023. "A geometric counting method adaptive to the author number," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:17:y:2023:i:2:s1751157723000299
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2023.101404
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