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Profit (p)-Index: The Degree to Which Authors Profit from Co-Authors

Author

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  • Nasir Ahmad Aziz
  • Maarten Pieter Rozing

Abstract

Current metrics for estimating a scientist’s academic performance treat the author’s publications as if these were solely attributable to the author. However, this approach ignores the substantive contributions of co-authors, leading to misjudgments about the individual’s own scientific merits and consequently to misallocation of funding resources and academic positions. This problem is becoming the more urgent in the biomedical field where the number of collaborations is growing rapidly, making it increasingly harder to support the best scientists. Therefore, here we introduce a simple harmonic weighing algorithm for correcting citations and citation-based metrics such as the h-index for co-authorships. This weighing algorithm can account for both the nvumber of co-authors and the sequence of authors on a paper. We then derive a measure called the ‘profit (p)-index’, which estimates the contribution of co-authors to the work of a given author. By using samples of researchers from a renowned Dutch University hospital, Spinoza Prize laureates (the most prestigious Dutch science award), and Nobel Prize laureates in Physiology or Medicine, we show that the contribution of co-authors to the work of a particular author is generally substantial (i.e., about 80%) and that researchers’ relative rankings change materially when adjusted for the contributions of co-authors. Interestingly, although the top University hospital researchers had the highest h-indices, this appeared to be due to their significantly higher p-indices. Importantly, the ranking completely reversed when using the profit adjusted h-indices, with the Nobel laureates having the highest, the Spinoza Prize laureates having an intermediate, and the top University hospital researchers having the lowest profit adjusted h-indices, respectively, suggesting that exceptional researchers are characterized by a relatively high degree of scientific independency/originality. The concepts and methods introduced here may thus provide a more fair impression of a scientist’s autonomous academic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Nasir Ahmad Aziz & Maarten Pieter Rozing, 2013. "Profit (p)-Index: The Degree to Which Authors Profit from Co-Authors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-8, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0059814
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059814
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    Cited by:

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    3. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    4. Rahman, Mohammad Tariqur & Regenstein, Joe Mac & Kassim, Noor Lide Abu & Haque, Nazmul, 2017. "The need to quantify authors’ relative intellectual contributions in a multi-author paper," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 275-281.
    5. Akshaya Kumar Biswal, 2013. "An Absolute Index (Ab-index) to Measure a Researcher’s Useful Contributions and Productivity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Pär Sundling, 2023. "Author contributions and allocation of authorship credit: testing the validity of different counting methods in the field of chemical biology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2737-2762, May.
    7. M. P. Rozing & T. N. Leeuwen & P. H. Reitsma & F. R. Rosendaal & N. A. Aziz, 2020. "Freeloading in biomedical research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 47-55, January.
    8. Corrêa Jr., Edilson A. & Silva, Filipi N. & da F. Costa, Luciano & Amancio, Diego R., 2017. "Patterns of authors contribution in scientific manuscripts," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 498-510.
    9. Luis Sanz-Menéndez & Laura Cruz-Castro & Kenedy Alva, 2013. "Time to Tenure in Spanish Universities: An Event History Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-1, October.
    10. Elisabeth Maria Schlagberger & Lutz Bornmann & Johann Bauer, 2016. "At what institutions did Nobel laureates do their prize-winning work? An analysis of biographical information on Nobel laureates from 1994 to 2014," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 723-767, November.
    11. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    12. Ausloos, M., 2015. "Assessing the true role of coauthors in the h-index measure of an author scientific impact," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 422(C), pages 136-142.
    13. Han Woo Park & Jungwon Yoon & Loet Leydesdorff, 2016. "The normalization of co-authorship networks in the bibliometric evaluation: the government stimulation programs of China and Korea," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1017-1036, November.
    14. Limei Zhao & Qingpu Zhang & Liang Wang, 2014. "Benefit distribution mechanism in the team members’ scientific research collaboration network," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 100(2), pages 363-389, August.

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