Evaluating scholars based on their academic collaboration activities: two indices, the RC-index and the CC-index, for quantifying collaboration activities of researchers and scientific communities

Although there are many studies for quantifying the academic performance of researchers, such as measuring the scientific performance based on the number of publications, there are no studies about quantifying the collaboration activities of researchers. This study addresses this shortcoming. Based on three measures, namely the collaboration network structure of researchers, the number of collaborations with other researchers, and the productivity index of co-authors, two new indices, the RC-Index and CC-Index, are proposed for quantifying the collaboration activities of researchers and scientific communities. After applying these indices on a data set generated from publication lists of five schools of information systems, this study concludes with a discussion of the shortcomings and advantages of these indices.

[1]  J. E. Hirsch,et al.  An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output , 2005, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

[2]  Stephen M. Ritchie,et al.  Studying research collaboration , 2007 .

[3]  G. Laudel.  What do we measure by co-authorships? , 2002 .

[4]  András Schubert,et al.  Successive h-indices , 2007, Scientometrics.

[5]  Henk F. Moed,et al.  Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research , 2005 .

[6]  L. Egghe,et al.  Theory and practise of the g-index , 2006, Scientometrics.

[7]  Wolfgang Glänzel,et al.  A Hirsch-type index for journals , 2006, Scientometrics.

[8]  Jörn Altmann,et al.  Evaluating the Productivity of Researchers and their Communities: The RP-Index and the CP-Index , 2010 .

[9]  Yang Tao,et al.  A Study on Development Planning for Management Science and Engineering , 2006 .

[10]  J. Ziman.  Pipers and Tunes in Science. (Book Reviews: Prometheus Bound. Science in a Dynamic Steady State.) , 2005 .

[11]  Olle Persson,et al.  Studying research collaboration using co-authorships , 1996, Scientometrics.

[12]  Yannis Manolopoulos,et al.  Generalized h-index for Disclosing Latent Facts in Citation Networks , 2006, ArXiv.

[13]  W. Glänzel,et al.  A Hirsch-type index for journals [1] , 2005 .

[14]  Jonathan Furner,et al.  Scholarly communication and bibliometrics , 2005, Annu. Rev. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[15]  A. D. Jackson,et al.  Measures for measures , 2006, Nature.

[16]  Yichuan Jiang.  Locating active actors in the scientific collaboration communities based on interaction topology analyses , 2007, Scientometrics.

[17]  B. Shekar,et al.  Discovering Mentorship Information from Author Collaboration Networks , 2007, Discovery Science.

[18]  Mônica G. Campiteli,et al.  Is it possible to compare researchers with different scientific interests? , 2006, Scientometrics.

[19]  G. Melin.  Pragmatism and self-organization: Research collaboration on the individual level , 2000 .

[20]  Yannis Manolopoulos,et al.  Generalized Hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks , 2007, Scientometrics.

[21]  KoushaKayvan,et al.  Google Scholar citations and Google Web-URL citations: A multi-discipline exploratory analysis , 2007 .

[22]  Richard S. J. Tol,et al.  Rational (successive) h-indices: An application to economics in the Republic of Ireland , 2008, Scientometrics.

[23]  M. Leclerc,et al.  International scientific cooperation: The continentalization of science , 1994, Scientometrics.

[24]  Ricardo Pietrobon,et al.  Scientific indicators of productivity: time for action. , 2007, Revista brasileira de psiquiatria.

[25]  M. Thelwall,et al.  Google Scholar citations and Google Web-URL citations: A multi-discipline exploratory analysis , 2007 .

[26]  Richard S. J. Tol,et al.  A rational, successive g-index applied to economics departments in Ireland , 2008, J. Informetrics.

[27]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  Google Scholar citations and Google Web/URL citations: A multi-discipline exploratory analysis , 2007, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..