Coauthorship of journal articles and book chapters in the social sciences and humanities (2000–2010)

Abstract

This study analyzes coauthorship patterns in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) for the period 2000 to 2010. The basis for the analysis is the Flemish Academic Bibliographic Database for the Social Sciences and Humanities (VABB-SHW), a comprehensive bibliographic database of peer-reviewed publications in the SSH by researchers affiliated with Flemish universities. Combining data on journal articles and book chapters, our findings indicate that collaborative publishing in the SSH is increasing, though considerable differences between disciplines remain. Conversely, we did observe a sharp decline in single-author publishing. We further demonstrate that coauthored SSH articles in journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) generally have a higher (and growing) number of coauthors than do either those in non-WoS journals or book chapters. This illustrates the need to include non-WoS data and book chapters when studying coauthorship in the SSH.

What factors affect the visibility of Argentinean publications in humanities and social sciences in Scopus? Some evidence beyond the geographic realm of research

“…The association with other authors, whether from domestic institutions or abroad, favors the impact of research (Katz & Martin, 1997;Glänzel, 2001). This positive relationship was also determined for the case of Argentina in other studies (Miguel, 2008;Miguel & Moya, 2009), although the tendency may vary depending on the country, sector or discipline in question (Leimu & Koricheva, 2005;Glänzel, Debackere, Thjis, & Schubert, 2006;Engels, Ossenblok & Spruyt, 2012;Ossenblok, Verleysen & Engels, 2014).…”

Book editors in the social sciences and humanities: an analysis of publication and collaboration patterns of established researchers in Flanders

“…For the far more book-oriented humanities, the inclusion of book data in bibliometric analysis shows them to be significantly more collaborative and internationally oriented than analyses based on articles only. 20 Overall, the results thus both confirm and contradict the existing image of editors apparent in the scarce current literature. While it is true that such authors still often prefer to 20 not all collaboration is converted into co-authorship, and these ghost authorships are not often included in collaboration studies.…”

“…This implies that collaboration studies for the SSH which analyse solely journal articles are strongly biased towards social science disciplines which rely mostly upon this publication type (e.g. in the Flemish data: psychology, economics and social health sciences 20 ). For the far more book-oriented humanities, the inclusion of book data in bibliometric analysis shows them to be significantly more collaborative and internationally oriented than analyses based on articles only.…”

“…Furthermore, the difference between whole counts and fractional counts is more pronounced in the social sciences than in the humanities, pointing towards a higher number of co-authors in the social sciences, confirming previous research. 20 Contrasting with Table 1, the publication counts in Figure 2 are neither fractionalized nor weighted. In both the humanities and the social sciences, articles are the most popular publication type for both editors and noneditors, varying between 15.9 articles per editor in the humanities and 31.9 in the social sciences.…”

“…Scientific collaboration in the social sciences and humanities, both domestic and international, is on the rise worldwide. [19][20][21] The nature of a collaboration depends on factors such as the research environment, the nature of the problem, and the methods used, [22][23][24] and the potential benefits and challenges of scientific collaboration may depend on the type of collaboration, the discipline, and the country or countries involved. 25 Scientific collaboration has benefits, such as sharing of knowledge, cross-fertilization of ideas, and intellectual companionship, as well as challenges, such as time-consuming discussions, for which a common language is essential, 26,27 travel costs, and increased administration.…”