Abstract
In this paper a new author’s productivity index is introduced, namely the golden productivity index. The proposed index measures the productivity of an individual researcher evaluating the number of papers as well as the rank of co-authorship. It provides an efficient method to measure the author’s contribution in articles writing, compared to other ordinary methods. It gives emphasis to the first authors contributions due to the fact that traditionally the rank of each author shows the magnitude of his contribution in the article.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ajiferuke, I., Burrel, Q., & Tague, J. (1988). Collaborative coefficient: A single measure of the degree of collaboration in research. Scientometrics, 14(5–6), 421–433.
Bhandari, M., Einhorn, T. A., Swiontkowski, M. F., & Heckman, J. D. (2003). Who did what? (Mis). Perceptions about authors’ contributions to scientific articles based on order of authorship. The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American), 85, 1605–1609.
Boxenbaum, H., Pivinski, F., & Ruberg, S. J. (1987). Publication rates of pharmaceutical scientists: Application of the Waring distribution. Drug Metabolism Reviews, 18(4), 553–571.
Dizon, L. B., & Sadorra, M. S. M. (1995). Patterns of publication by the staff of an international fisheries research center. Scientometrics, 32(1), 67–75.
Ellwein, L. B., Khachab, M., & Waldman, R. H. (1989). Assessing research productivity: Evaluating journal publication across academic departments. Academic Medicine, 64(6), 319–325.
Endersby, J. W. (1966). Collaborative research in the social sciences: Multiple authorship and publication credit. Social Science Quarterly, 77(2), 375–392.
Folly, G., Hajtman, B., Nagy, J. I., & Ruff, I. (1981). Some methodological problems in ranking scientists by citation analysis. Scientometrics, 3(2), 135–147.
Hoen, W. P., Walvoort, H. C., & Overbeke, A. J. P. M. (1998). What are the factors determining authorship and the order of the authors’ names? A study among authors of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde. Dutch Journal of Medicine JAMA, 280(3), 217–218.
Howard, G. S., Cole, D. A., & Maxwell, S. E. (1987). Research productivity in psychology based on publication in the journals of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 42(11), 975–986.
Hwang, S. S., Song, H. H., Baik, J. H., Jung, S. L., Park, S. H., Choi, K. H., et al. (2003). Researcher contributions and fulfillment of ICMJE authorship criteria: Analysis of author contribution lists in research articles with multiple authors published in Radiology. Radiology, 226(1), 16–23.
Lawani S. M. (1980). Quality, collaboration and citations in cancer research: A bibliometric study. Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, p. xvii.
Lindsey, D. (1980). Production and citation measures in the sociology of science: The problem of multiple authorship. Social Studies of Science, 10(2), 145–162.
Lukovits, I., & Vinkler, P. (1995). Correct credit distribution: A model for sharing credit among coauthors. Social Indicators Research, 36, 91–98.
Price, D. de Solla (1981). Multiple authorship. Science, 212(4498), 986. doi:10.1126/science.212.4498.986-a.
Price, D. de Solla, & Beaver, D. B. (1966). Collaboration in an invisible college. American Psychologist, 21(11), 1011–1018.
Rounsefell, G. (1961). How can research production be measured? Proceedings of the Culf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute, 13, 139–150.
Schreiber, M. (2009). A case study of the modified Hirsch index hm accounting for multiple co-authors. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(6), 1274–1282.
Shapiro, D. W., Wenger, N. S., & Shapiro, M. F. (1994). The contributions of authors to multiauthored biomedical research papers. JAMA, 271(6), 438–442.
Slone, M. R. (1996). Coauthors’ contributions to major papers published in the AJR: Frequency of undeserved coauthorship. American Journal of Roentgenology, 167, 571–579.
Subramanyam, K. (1983). Bibliometric studies of research collaboration: A review. Journal of Information Science, 6(1), 33–38.
Trenchard, P. M. (1992). Hierarchical bibliometry: A new objective measure of individual scientific performance to replace publication counts and to complement citation measures. Journal of Information Science, 18(1), 69–75.
Trueba, F. J., & Guerrero, H. (2004). A robust formula to credit authors for their publications. Scientometrics, 60(2), 181–204.
Tscharntke, T., Hochberg, M. E., Rand, T. A., Resh, V. H., & Krauss, J. (2007). Author sequence and credit for contributions in multiauthored publications. PLoS Biology, 5(1), e18.
Vinkler, P. (1993). Research contribution, authorship and team cooperativeness. Scientometrics, 26(1), 213–230.
Vinkler, P. (2000). Evaluation of the publication activity of research teams by means of scientometric indicators. Current Science, 79(5), 602–612.
Von Hooydonk, G. (1997). Fractional counting of multiauthored publications: Consequences for the impact of authors. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48(10), 944–945.
Zuckerman, H. A. (1968). Patterns of name ordering among authors of scientific papers: A study of social symbolism and its ambiguity. The American Journal of Sociology, 74, 276–279.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the reviewers for their critical comments and guidance to prepare this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Assimakis, N., Adam, M. A new author’s productivity index: p-index. Scientometrics 85, 415–427 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0255-z
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0255-z