A Note on the Empirical Futility of Labor-Intensive Scoring Permutations for Assessing Scholarly Productivity: Implications for Research, Promotion/Tenure, and Mentoring.

Abstract

The measurement of scholarly productivity is embroiled in a controversy concerning the differential crediting of coauthors. Some researchers assign equivalent shares to each coauthor; others employ weighting systems based on authorship order. Horan and his colleagues use simple publication totals, arguing that the psychometric properties of labor-intensive alternatives are unknown, and relevant ethical guidelines for including coauthors are neither widely understood nor consistently followed. ...