The Scholar's Courtesy: A Survey of Acknowledgement Behaviour

Abstract

Scholars in major us research universities were surveyed to explore the normative bases of acknowledgement behaviour. Measures of agreement and divergence were established in respect of five issue sets pertaining to acknowledgement practice: expectations, etiquette, ethics, equity and evaluation. The results confirm the substantive role played by acknowledgements in the primary communication process. Although few formal rules exist, it is clear that many scholars subscribe to the idea of a governing etiquette. The findings also suggest that acknowledgement data could be mined to lay bare the rules of engagement that define the dynamics of collaboration and inter‐dependence among scholars.

Scholarly communication and bibliometrics

“…In a series of "influmetric" studies (see, for example, Cronin [1991], Cronin, McKenzie, & Rubio [1993], Cronin, McKenzie, & Stiffler [1992], and Cronin & Overfelt [1994a1) culminating in a monographic treatment (Cronin, 1995), Cronin and his coworkers have developed the notion that the published acknowledgments made by scholarly authors of the contributions of others may be similarly, perhaps even more directly, regarded as indicators of the extent of influence or impact of the acknowledged on the acknowledger. Cronin was able to employ bibliometric methods in analyzing counts of instances of acknowledgment in order to develop a typology of acknowledgments, to identify highly acknowledged authors in various disciplines, to characterize the frequency distributions of acknowledgments, and to describe acknowledgers' behavior.…”

Bibliometric Analysis of Social Robotics Research: Identifying Research Trends and Knowledgebase

“…Robots are studied as entertainers or educators with emphasis on their application as a therapy tool in the context of autism spectrum disorders [43,44]. The role of robot appearance in raising trust and comfortability in children is one of the key aspects studies [45]. Furthermore, models of learning and language acquisition are found [46].…”

Anatomy of Scholarly Collaboration in Engineering Education: A Big‐Data Bibliometric Analysis

“…However, such activities are not formally documented and cannot be easily ascertained. There are also other ways of tracking scholarly communication and collaboration, such as the study of acknowledgments (Cronin & Overfelt, 1994;Laudel, 2002), citations (Bornmann, Mutz, Neuhaus, & Daniel, 2008;Garfield, 1972;Rahm & Thor, 2005;Sims & McGhee, 2003;Smith, 1981), and co-citations (Acedo & Casillas, 2005;Gm€ ur, 2003;He & Hui, 2002;Small, 1999) in publications. Such collaboration is known as "invisible" (Laudel, 2002), whereas coauthorship is the most tangible, widely used, and best-documented form of collaboration (Gl€ anzel & Schubert, 2005;Smith, 1958).…”