<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><sec><h3>Purpose</h3><p>In this contribution we provide two new co-authorship indicators based on fractional counting.</p></sec><sec><h3>Design/methodology/approach</h3><p>Based on the idea of fractional counting we reflect on what should be an acceptable indicator for co-authorship between two entities. From this reflection we propose an indicator, the co-authorship score, denoted as cs, using the harmonic mean. Dividing this new indicator by the classical co-authorship indicator based on full counting, leads to a co-authorship intensity indicator.</p></sec><sec><h3>Findings</h3><p>We show that the indicators we propose have many necessary or at least highly desirable properties for a proper cs-score. It is pointed out that the two new indicators can be used for countries, but also for institutions and other pairs of entities. A small example shows the feasibility of the co-authorship score and the co-authorship intensity indicator.</p></sec><sec><h3>Research limitations</h3><p>The indicators are not yet tested in real cases.</p></sec><sec><h3>Practical implications</h3><p>As the notions of co-authorship and collaboration have many aspects, we think that our contribution may help policy management to take yet another aspect into account as part of a multi-faceted description of research outcomes.</p></sec><sec><h3>Originality/value</h3><p>The indicators we propose cover yet another aspect of co-authorship.</p></sec></abstract>

PurposeIn this contribution we provide two new co-authorship indicators based on fractional counting.Design/methodology/approachBased on the idea of fractional counting we reflect on what should be an acceptable indicator for co-authorship between two entities. From this reflection we propose an indicator, the co-authorship score, denoted as cs, using the harmonic mean. Dividing this new indicator by the classical co-authorship indicator based on full counting, leads to a co-authorship intensity indicator.FindingsWe show that the indicators we propose have many necessary or at least highly desirable properties for a proper cs-score. It is pointed out that the two new indicators can be used for countries, but also for institutions and other pairs of entities. A small example shows the feasibility of the co-authorship score and the co-authorship intensity indicator.Research limitationsThe indicators are not yet tested in real cases.Practical implicationsAs the notions of co-authorship and collaboration have many aspects, we think that our contribution may help policy management to take yet another aspect into account as part of a multi-faceted description of research outcomes.Originality/valueThe indicators we propose cover yet another aspect of co-authorship.

Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting

University of Antwerp, Faculty of Social Sciences

Journal of Data and Information Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting"}

PurposeIn this contribution we provide two new co-authorship indicators based on fractional counting.Design/methodology/approachBased on the idea of fractional...

Year	Belgium	The Netherlands	Joint work	% of joint work : Belgium	% of joint work : Netherlands
Mathematics: 2016–2017	606	489	12	1.98	2.45
Mathematics: 2018–2019	588	558	14	2.38	2.51
Applied Mathematics: 2016–2017	632	586	21	3.32	3.58
Applied Mathematics: 2018–2019	615	631	24	3.90	3.80

Year	Average number of authors	Belgium	The Netherlands	Other countries	Total	Cs-values	Average cs-value per publication
Mathematics 2016–2017	2.58	4.292	4.708	3.000	12	8.882	0.740
Mathematics: 2018–2019	3.07	4.300	5.133	4.567	14	8.733	0.624
Applied mathematics: 2016–2017	4.52	9.514	6.394	5.092	21	13.962	0.665
Applied Mathematics: 2018–2019	4.58	7.400	8.200	8.401	24	14.146	0.589

C₁	C₂	Other	cs(C₁,C₂)
1/6	1/6	4/6	0.333
2/6	1/6	3/6	0.444
3/6	1/6	2/6	0.500
4/6	1/6	1/6	0.533
1/7	1/7	5/7	0.286
1/7	2/7	4/7	0.381
1/8	1/8	6/8	0.250
2/7	2/7	3/7	0.571
2/8	2/8	4/8	0.500
3/9	3/9	3/9	0.667
4/10	4/10	2/10	0.800

Year	Mathematics: 2016–2017	Mathematics: 2018–2019	Applied mathematics: 2016–2017	Applied mathematics: 2018–2019
CI calculations	8.882/12	8.733/14	13.962/21	14.146/24
CI-value	0.74	0.62	0.66	0.59

C₁	C₂	cs(C₁,C₂)
1/5	4/5	0.640
2/5	3/5	0.960
1/6	5/6	0.556
2/6	4/6	0.889
3/6	3/6	1.000

Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting

Article Category: Research Paper

Publicado en línea: 23 oct 2020

Páginas: 1 - 12

Recibido: 07 ago 2020

Aceptado: 10 oct 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2021-0005

Palabras clave
Collaboration, Country studies, Fractional counting, Harmonic mean, Co-authorship intensity

© 2021 Ronald Rousseau et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Basic data: number of retrieved publications over the period 2016–2019 (full counting).

Total fractional contributions and cs-values.

Examples where other countries are involved.

Co-authorship intensity values: CI (Belgium, the Netherlands).

Examples where no other countries are involved.

Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting

Article Category: Research Paper

Publicado en línea: 23 oct 2020

Páginas: 1 - 12

Recibido: 07 ago 2020

Aceptado: 10 oct 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2021-0005

Palabras claveCollaboration, Country studies, Fractional counting, Harmonic mean, Co-authorship intensity

© 2021 Ronald Rousseau et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Basic data: number of retrieved publications over the period 2016–2019 (full counting).

Total fractional contributions and cs-values.

Examples where other countries are involved.

Co-authorship intensity values: CI (Belgium, the Netherlands).

Examples where no other countries are involved.

Palabras clave
Collaboration, Country studies, Fractional counting, Harmonic mean, Co-authorship intensity