An empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing |
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| Authors: | Ludo Waltman |
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| Institution: | 1. Laboratory for Studies of Research and Technology Transfer, Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science (IASI-CNR), National Research Council of Italy, Italy;2. Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR), Italy;3. Department of Management and Engineering University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy;1. Department of Economics, Jubilee Building, University of Sussex, Falmer BN1 9SL, United Kingdom;2. Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;3. Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;1. Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China;2. School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China;3. School of Management, Anhui University, Hefei, 230039, China;4. National Geological Library of China, Beijing, 100083, China;1. China Agricultural University Library, 2 Yuanmingyuan Xilu, Beijing, China;2. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, Canada H3C 3J7;3. École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal, and Observatoire des Sciences et des Technologies (OST), Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Science et la Technologie (CIRST), Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada |
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| Abstract: | There are different ways in which the authors of a scientific publication can determine the order in which their names are listed. Sometimes author names are simply listed alphabetically. In other cases, authorship order is determined based on the contribution authors have made to a publication. Contribution-based authorship can facilitate proper credit assignment, for instance by giving most credits to the first author. In the case of alphabetical authorship, nothing can be inferred about the relative contribution made by the different authors of a publication.In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing. Our analysis covers all fields of science. We find that the use of alphabetical authorship is declining over time. In 2011, the authors of less than 4% of all publications intentionally chose to list their names alphabetically. The use of alphabetical authorship is most common in mathematics, economics (including finance), and high energy physics. Also, the use of alphabetical authorship is relatively more common in the case of publications with either a small or a large number of authors. |
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