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Harmonic coauthor credit: A parsimonious quantification of the byline hierarchy

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  • Hagen, Nils T.

Abstract

In this paper the accuracy of five current approaches to quantifying the byline hierarchy of a scientific paper is assessed by measuring the ability of each to explain the variation in a composite empirical dataset. Harmonic credit explained 97% of the variation by including information about the number of coauthors and their position in the byline. In contrast, fractional credit, which ignored the byline hierarchy by allocating equal credit to all coauthors, explained less than 40% of the variation in the empirical dataset. The nearly 60% discrepancy in explanatory power between fractional and harmonic credit was accounted for by equalizing bias associated with the omission of relevant information about differential coauthor contribution. Including an additional parameter to describe a continuum of intermediate formulas between fractional and harmonic provided a negligible or negative gain in predictive accuracy. By comparison, two parametric models from the bibliometric literature both had an explanatory capacity of approximately 80%. In conclusion, the results indicate that the harmonic formula provides a parsimonious solution to the problem of quantifying the byline hierarchy. Harmonic credit allocation also accommodates specific indications of departures from the basic byline hierarchy, such as footnoted information stating that some or all coauthors have contributed equally or indicating the presence of a senior author.

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  • Hagen, Nils T., 2013. "Harmonic coauthor credit: A parsimonious quantification of the byline hierarchy," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 784-791.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:7:y:2013:i:4:p:784-791
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2013.06.005
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    Cited by:

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    6. Yannick Berker, 2018. "Golden-ratio as a substitute to geometric and harmonic counting to determine multi-author publication credit," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 839-857, March.
    7. Javier E., Contreras-Reyes, 2016. "Credit allocation based on journal impact factor and coauthorship contribution," MPRA Paper 71294, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Owen L Petchey & Jeremy W Fox & Lindsay Haddon, 2014. "Imbalance in Individual Researcher's Peer Review Activities Quantified for Four British Ecological Society Journals, 2003-2010," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-4, March.
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    16. Xie, Qing & Zhang, Xinyuan & Song, Min, 2021. "A network embedding-based scholar assessment indicator considering four facets: Research topic, author credit allocation, field-normalized journal impact, and published time," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    17. Hagen, Nils T., 2014. "Counting and comparing publication output with and without equalizing and inflationary bias," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 310-317.
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    20. Wang, Feifei & Jia, Chenran & Wang, Xiaohan & Liu, Junwan & Xu, Shuo & Liu, Yang & Yang, Chenyuyan, 2019. "Exploring all-author tripartite citation networks: A case study of gene editing," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 856-873.
    21. António Osório, 2018. "On the impossibility of a perfect counting method to allocate the credits of multi-authored publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2161-2173, September.
    22. Pär Sundling, 2023. "Author contributions and allocation of authorship credit: testing the validity of different counting methods in the field of chemical biology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2737-2762, May.
    23. Jingda Ding & Chao Liu & Qiao Zheng & Wei Cai, 2021. "A new method of co-author credit allocation based on contributor roles taxonomy: proof of concept and evaluation using papers published in PLOS ONE," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7561-7581, September.
    24. Javier E. Contreras-Reyes, 2016. "Credit allocation based on journal impact factor and coauthorship contribution," Papers 1606.04139, arXiv.org.

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