In the Club: Authorship Norms and Collaboration Structures in Science

• In Event: 067 - Section on Science, Knowledge and Technology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Science, Knowledge and Technology Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Structures of Science

Abstract

This work focuses on guest and ghost authorship in scientific collaborations. The motivations for this work are three-fold: 1) Authorship is commonly accepted as a basis for recognition or prestige (and associated rewards such as salaries, promotions, funding, etc.); 2) Scientific teams have become increasingly large, including more multi-site collaborations, complicating authorship; and 3) Fields differ in both their organization of the research and in their norms about authorship. These motivations lead to the following research question: what is the likelihood of guests and ghosts across different research contexts, including field, size of the project team, commercial orientation, high impact, and organization of the collaboration. We use a survey of over 1500 projects spanning all Web of Science fields to test these hypotheses. The main finding of the research is that peer organized collaborations are more exclusive, giving less credit to peripheral participants. On the other hand, the greater the number of authors, the more inclusive the collaborations are, meaning fewer ghosts and more guests. Moreover, there are significant differences in authorship practices across fields, suggesting there is no “universal standard” for authorship. This work supplements existing literature on the implications for authorship as a measure of contribution. Additionally, we to highlight the vulnerability of credit system in science in world of interdisciplinary projects and multiple audiences. Finally, the work highlights the importance of examining the organization of scientific teams for understanding commonly studied outcomes in the sociology of science, such as authorship and collaboration.

Authors

• John P. Walsh, Georgia Institute of Technology

• Sahra Jabbehdari, Georgia Institute of Technology