Programmers, Professors, and Parasites: Credit and Co-Authorship in Computer Science

Abstract

This article presents an in-depth analysis of past and present publishing practices in academic computer science to suggest the establishment of a more consistent publishing standard. Historical precedent for academic publishing in computer science is established through the study of anecdotes as well as statistics collected from databases of published computer science papers. After examining these facts alongside information about analogous publishing situations and standards in other scientific fields, the article concludes with a list of basic principles that should be adopted in any computer science publishing standard. These principles would contribute to the reliability and scientific nature of academic publications in computer science and would allow for more straightforward discourse in future publications.

The evolution of the CASCON community

“…From 1997 to 2009, the majority of papers each year have 2-4 authors. This trend is in line with previous research that has witnessed a steady increase in the number of multiplyauthored papers in computer science extracted from the DBLP database from 1936 to 2005 [24]. We also looked at citations and found that CASCON papers have, on average, 75% of the citations of those in other conferences and workshop series in computer science (see Table 1).…”

“…Scientific research is often a collaborative process: bibliometric studies over the past two decades have shown a continuous increase in the number of co-authored papers in every scientific discipline as well as within and across countries and geographic areas [27] and, specifically, within the computer science research community [24]. This raises the question of the manner in which the various authors interact in working to develop and publish such joint work.…”

Academic careers in Computer Science: continuance and transience of lifetime co-authorships

“…Materials published before 1993 were entered by hand, whereas nowadays the system automatically extracts most of the bibliographic records. The DBLP covers a large share of research output in CS (Reitz & Hoffmann, 2010) and various studies have relied on it to reveal the features and publication culture of CS (e.g., see Cabanac, 2012Cabanac, , 2013Cavero, Vela, & Cáceres, 2014;Deng, King, & Lyu, 2008;Elmacioglu & Lee, 2005;Solomon, 2009). The relative decrease in record numbers for year 2011 may result from the latency of data collection and processing.…”

The relationship between acquaintanceship and coauthorship in scientific collaboration networks

“…The coauthorship network of this scientific community was constructed from its bibliographic record, gathered from all scholarly items listed in seven available CENS Annual Reports (2003-2009.A publication database was assembled, consisting of 608 papers published by a total of 391 unique individuals over a period of 10 years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009). Table 1 summarizes the distribution of papers analyzed by publication type, and the number of authors.…”