IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v98y2014i3d10.1007_s11192-013-1178-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Computer science research: more production, less productivity

Author

Listed:
  • José María Cavero

    (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)

  • Belén Vela

    (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)

  • Paloma Cáceres

    (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that scientific research or, more precisely, the number of scientific publications, in computer science has greatly increased over the last few years. The reason would appear to be the pressure to publish, coined by the expression ”Publish or perish”, which is, among other things, necessary for promotions and applications for grants or projects. In this paper we have conducted a study that covers computer science publications from 1936 to 2010 in order to quantify this increase in publications regarding computing research. We have considered the computing conferences and journals available in the DBLP computer science bibliography (DBLP 2013) database, including more than 1.5 million papers, and more than 4 million authors (more than 900,000 different people), corresponding to about 1,000 different journals and 3,000 different conferences and workshops. Our study confirms and quantifies these increases with regard to the number of papers, number of authors, number of papers per author, etc. However, it also reaches a surprising conclusion: the real productivity of researchers has decreased throughout history. The reason for this decrease is the average number of authors per paper, which has grown significantly and is currently three.

Suggested Citation

  • José María Cavero & Belén Vela & Paloma Cáceres, 2014. "Computer science research: more production, less productivity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2103-2111, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:98:y:2014:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-013-1178-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-013-1178-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-013-1178-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-013-1178-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Derek R. Smith, 2012. "Impact factors, scientometrics and the history of citation-based research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 419-427, August.
    2. Hendrik P. van Dalen & Kène Henkens, 2012. "Intended and unintended consequences of a publish‐or‐perish culture: A worldwide survey," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1282-1293, July.
    3. Daniele Fanelli, 2010. "Do Pressures to Publish Increase Scientists' Bias? An Empirical Support from US States Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(4), pages 1-7, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. João M. Fernandes & Miguel P. Monteiro, 2017. "Evolution in the number of authors of computer science publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 529-539, February.
    2. Guillaume Cabanac & Gilles Hubert & Béatrice Milard, 2015. "Academic careers in Computer Science: continuance and transience of lifetime co-authorships," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 135-150, January.
    3. José María Cavero & Belén Vela & Paloma Cáceres & Carlos Cuesta & Almudena Sierra-Alonso, 2015. "The evolution of female authorship in computing research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(1), pages 85-100, April.
    4. Kim, Jinseok & Diesner, Jana, 2015. "The effect of data pre-processing on understanding the evolution of collaboration networks," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 226-236.
    5. Jesus Palomo & Cristina Figueroa-Domecq & Pilar Laguna, 2017. "Women, peace and security state-of-art: a bibliometric analysis in social sciences based on SCOPUS database," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 123-148, October.
    6. Camil Demetrescu & Irene Finocchi & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2022. "On computer science research and its temporal evolution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4913-4938, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dell'Anno, Roberto & Caferra, Rocco & Morone, Andrea, 2020. "A “Trojan Horse” in the peer-review process of fee-charging economic journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Grilli, Leonardo, 2021. "The effects of citation-based research evaluation schemes on self-citation behavior," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    3. Hendrik P. Dalen, 2021. "How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1675-1694, February.
    4. Daniele Fanelli & Rodrigo Costas & Vincent Larivière, 2015. "Misconduct Policies, Academic Culture and Career Stage, Not Gender or Pressures to Publish, Affect Scientific Integrity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.
    5. van Dalen, Hendrik Peter, 2020. "How the Publish-or-Perish Principle Divides a Science : The Case of Academic Economists," Other publications TiSEM 6fbb6b92-0e06-4271-b6e7-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. van Dalen, Hendrik Peter, 2021. "How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: The case of economists," Other publications TiSEM a6a5a855-bb5a-4d52-a841-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Mark D Lindner & Richard K Nakamura, 2015. "Examining the Predictive Validity of NIH Peer Review Scores," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-12, June.
    8. Joeri K Tijdink & Anton C M Vergouwen & Yvo M Smulders, 2013. "Publication Pressure and Burn Out among Dutch Medical Professors: A Nationwide Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-6, September.
    9. Daniele Fanelli & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Researchers’ Individual Publication Rate Has Not Increased in a Century," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-12, March.
    10. M. K. Yanti Idaya Aspura & A. Noorhidawati & A. Abrizah, 2018. "An analysis of Malaysian retracted papers: Misconduct or mistakes?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1315-1328, June.
    11. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2014. "Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour," ICER Working Papers 03-2014, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    12. Stephan Puehringer & Johanna Rath & Teresa Griesebner, 2021. "The political economy of academic publishing: On the commodification of a public good," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-21, June.
    13. Pantazi Marius, 2021. "In order to thrive, first we need to fix accounting and management Then, we must report what matters," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 15(1), pages 723-736, December.
    14. Stefan, Matthias & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Sutter, Matthias & Walzl, Markus, 2023. "Monetary and social incentives in multi-tasking: The ranking substitution effect," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    15. Matthias Stefan & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Matthias Sutter & Markus Walzl, 2020. "Monetary and Social Incentives in Multi-Tasking: The Ranking Substitution Effect," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2020_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    16. Sujai Shivakumar, 2017. "Innovation as a Collective Action Challenge," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: The Austrian and Bloomington Schools of Political Economy, volume 22, pages 159-173, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. Anna Ulrichshofer & Markus Walzl, 2020. "Social Comparison and Optimal Contracts in the Competition for Managerial Talent," Working Papers 2020-19, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    18. Jasper Brinkerink, 2023. "When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 304-343, March.
    19. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2019. "Values of Economists Matter in the Art and Science of Economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 472-499, August.
    20. Shibayama, Sotaro, 2019. "Sustainable development of science and scientists: Academic training in life science labs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 676-692.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:98:y:2014:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-013-1178-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.