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Assessing scientific collaboration through coauthorship and content sharing

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Abstract

Over the past decade there have been many investigations aimed at defining the role of scientists and research groups in their coauthorship networks. Starting from the assumptions of network analysis, in this work we propose an analytical definition of a collaboration potential between authors of scientific papers based on both coauthorships and content sharing. The collaboration potential can also be considered a useful tool to investigate the relationships between a single scientist and research groups, thus allowing for the identification of characteristic “types” of scientists (integrated, independent, etc.). We computed the collaboration potential for a set of authors belonging to research groups of an institute specialized in the field of Medical Genetics. The methods presented in the paper are rather general as they can be applied to compute a collaboration potential for a network of cooperating actors in every situation in which one can qualify the content of some activities and which of them are in common among the actors of the network.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Filippo Radicchi (Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory, Turin) and Pietro Leo (IBM Research, Bari) for their precious insights and suggestions. We wish also to thank Nicole Shirilla (University of Pittsburgh) for a revision of the language. This work was partly supported by the Italian Ministry of Health grant RC0904IC63.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy

    Francesco Giuliani & Michele Pio De Petris

  2. Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR-IAC), Rome, Italy

    Giovanni Nico

Authors
  1. Francesco Giuliani
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  2. Michele Pio De Petris
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  3. Giovanni Nico
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Giuliani.

Appendix

Appendix

Questionnaire in English

  1. 1.

    Suppose to divide into two sections the work you do in collaboration with other researchers: assign the first one to work done with colleagues of your research group, and the second one to work done with colleagues outside your research group. Express in percentual the size of each section (sum must be 100).

  2. 2.

    Consider your publications in the last six years. Choose, among the groups listed in the table below, the one that could have been more involved in your work.

Original questionnaire in Italian

  1. 1.

    Supponi di assegnare un punteggio pari al 100% al lavoro che svolgi in collaborazione con altri ricercatori (del tuo o di altri gruppi di ricerca). Dividi questo punteggio in una parte legata al lavoro in collaborazione con i colleghi del tuo gruppo di ricerca e una parte legata al lavoro in collaborazione con colleghi esterni al tuo gruppo.

  2. 2.

    Considerando le tue pubblicazioni scientifiche degli ultimi sei anni indica il gruppo di ricercatori che avresti potuto coinvolgere più di quanto non sia già avvenuto.

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Giuliani, F., De Petris, M.P. & Nico, G. Assessing scientific collaboration through coauthorship and content sharing. Scientometrics 85, 13–28 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0264-y

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