Table Of ContentResequencing: A Method for Conforming to
Conventions for Sharing Credits Among Multiple
Authors
Ash Mohammad Abbas
Department of Computer Engineering
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh - 202002, India.
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0
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Abstract—Devising an appropriate scheme that assigns the individualauthors.Though,somejournalsrequirethatauthors
n weights to share credits among multiple authors of a paper is a should themselves declare who carried out the research, who
a challengingtask.Thischallengecomesfromthefactthatdifferent
has written the paper, etc, in order to identify and reflect the
J typesof conventionsmight befollowed among differentresearch
contributions of individual authors.
5 discipline or research groups. In this paper, we discuss that for
1 the purpose of evaluating the quality of research produced by Further,inresearchteamsometimesthereismixofauthors,
authors, one can resequence either authors or weights and can some of them are quite efficient and contributed to the paper
] apply a weight assignment policy which the evaluator deems fit inlargepart,andsomeofthemcontributedforportionsofthe
L for the particular research discipline or research group.
work, however, their contributions might not be so less that
D
IndexTerms—Resequencing,qualityofresearch,contribution. onecanleavethemonlyacknowledgingtheirhelp.Itmayalso
.
s happenthatin some otherpapersthe authorswho contributed
c less in one paper might have contributed relatively a large
[
portionoftheworkinacollaborationwithsomeotherauthors.
I. INTRODUCTION
1 Anequalweightassignmentpolicymaynotbeappliedinsuch
v Sometimes, one is required to evaluate the quality of re- a case. Therefore, it seems logical that if the contribution of
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search produced by an author or a set of authors. In case of authors are not more or less equal, there should be a scheme
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multi-authoredpapers,oneshouldconsiderthecontributionof thattakesinto accountthe contributionsof individualauthors.
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2 each author and for that purpose one should assign weights Asmentionedabove,thereisnoschemewhichcanbeapplied
. to each author of the paper. However,devising an appropriate in all research areas or research groups due to different types
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0 scheme that assigns the weights for sharing credits among of conventions followed among different research disciplines
1 multipleauthorsisachallengingtaskandthechallengecomes or research groups. The conventions may depend on social
1 duetothefactthatdifferenttypesofconventionsarefollowed economic, political, academic factors.
v: among different research disciplines and/or research groups. In our previous works, we discussed weighted indices to
i Forexample,insomeofthedisciplines,thefirstauthorandthe incorporate multiple authorship [1], and generalized linear
X
lastauthorofapaperareconsideredtobetheleadauthorsand weights to share credits among multiple authors [2]. In this
ar restoftheauthorsareassumedtocontributeless ascompared paper,wediscussthatincaseofanunequalweightassignment
totheseauthors.Insomeofthedisciplines(orgroups),authors tomultipleauthorsonecanapplyaweightassignmentscheme
are consideredto contributein the orderin which their names whichhe/sheconsidersanappropriateschemefortheresearch
appear in the list of authorsof the paper. In some disciplines, discipline or research group. To make the scheme fit to the
it might be the corresponding author who is assumed to order of authors, one can use resequencing of either authors
contribute to the major part of the paper, irrespective of the or weights.
position where his/her name appears in the list of authors of The rest of this paperis organizedas follows. In section II,
the paper. we describe reordering of authors and weights. In section III,
There is no universally agreed weight assignment scheme we discuss using examples how one can reorder the authors
for sharing credits among multiple authors. One scheme of and weights in different scenarios. In section IV, we discuss
assigningweightsto authorscanbethateachauthoristreated the usability of resequencing. Finally, in the last section we
to contribute equally to the research paper. This is called conclude the paper.
fractional or equal weight assignment scheme. It has been
pointed out in [3] that the trend of equally sharing the credits
II. RESEQUENCING
isincreasing.Astheweightassignmentinafractionalscheme
does notdependupon the position of authors,therefore,there Inthissection,wedescribewhatwemeanbyresequencing.
is no issue related to the relative contributions of authors. Theresequencingcanbeoftwotypes:(i)authorresequencing,
However,practicallythecontributionsofauthorsarenotequal and (ii) weight resequencing. We describe both of them as
[4] and there are no means to measure the contributions of follows.
a1 a2 a3 ............ ak OrigSienqaul eAncuethor a1 a2 a3 ............ ak OrigSienqaul eAncuethor
a’1 a’2 a’3 ............ a’k MoSdeifqieude nAceuthor w1 w2 w3 ............ wk OrigSienqaul eWnceeight
w1 w2 w3 ............ wk OriSgienqaule Wnceeight w1’ w2’ w3’ ............ wk’ ModSifeiqeude Wnceeight
Fig.1. Theauthorsareresequenced,however,thesequenceofweightsfrom Fig.2. Theweightsareresequenced,however,thesequenceofauthorsfrom
thefirstauthors tothelastauthorremainsthesame. thefirstauthors tothelastauthorremains thesame.
A. Author Resequencing scheme, S, are in descending order, then the weight of the
Lettherebeknumberofauthorsofapaperinthefollowing first authorcan be putatthe last placeand weightsof authors
order<a ,a ,...,a >, and let there be a weight assignment are shifted to left by one place. The new set of weights is as
1 2 k
scheme, S, that assigns the following weights to the set of follows.
authors<w1,w2,...,wk > in thatorder. By resequencingthe <w2,w3,...,wk,w1 >.
authors,we mean thatthe authorsare rearrangedaccordingto
Again, we remind that weight reseuencing in this case is
theconventionsfollowedintheresearchdisciplineorresearch
shifting the weights to the left in a circular fashion.
group,however,theorderofweightsremainsthesame asthat
Let us consider another convention followed by a research
provided by the weight assignment policy. Let the new order
of authors be < a′,a′,...,a′ >. It means that the weight w discipline or a research group, say B, as follows.
isassignedtoauth1ora2′ forik=1,...,k.Figure1showsauthoir Convention 2: The last author of the paper is the group
i leader, and his contribution to the paper is less than the first
resequencing.
author, however, greater than any other author.
Solution 2: Let us first consider author resequencing. As
B. Weight Resequencing
mentioned earlier, the weights generated by a weight assign-
In weight resequencing, the order of author remains the ment scheme, S, are in descending order. In the modified
same as in the list of authors. However, the weights provided sequence of authors, the first author should be at the first
by the weight assignment policy are reordered using the position which corresponds to the largest weight, the last
conventions followed by a research discipline or a research author should be at the position corresponding to the second
group. Let the sequence of authors is < a1,a2,...,ak > and largest weight and it is actually the second position, the rest
the sequence of weights provided by the weight assignment of the authors are placed starting from third position to the
scheme, S, be < w1,w2,...,wk >. Let the set of weights last position. In other words, the new sequence of authors is
after resequencing be < w1′,w2′,...,wk′ >. It means that the as follows.
weight wi′ is assigned to the author ai. Figure 2 shows the <a1,ak,a2,a3,...,ak−1 >
resequencing of weights.
On the other hand, consider the weight resequencing. The
III. EXAMPLESOF SCENARIOS FOR RESEQUENCING first author, a1, should be assigned the largest weight, w1,
the last author, a , should be assigned the second largest
We now discuss examples of different types of scenarios k
weight, w , and the rest of the authors should be assigned
where resequencing may be required to share credits among 2
theremainingweightsindecreasingorder.Inotherwords,the
multipleauthors.Thesescenariosarebasedontheconventions
new sequence of weights is as follows.
used in a research discipline or a research group.
Let the convention followed by a research discipline or a <w ,w ,w ,...,w ,w >.
1 3 4 k 2
research group, say A, be as follows.
Convention 1: Thelastauthoristheleadauthorandshould Let us consider another convention, which has a notion
beassignedthelargestweightamongstallauthorsofthepaper. of the corresponding author, and is followed by a research
Solution 1: Since the last author is the lead author, there- discipline or a research group, say C, as follows.
fore, it can be brought at the first place, and the rest of the Convention 3: The corresponding author of the paper is
authors are shifted to the right by one place. In other words, assigned the largest weight, then the first author,and then the
the sequence of authors after reordering is as follows. last author; the rest of the authors have their contribution in
the order of their names appearing in the author list.
<a ,a ,a ,...,a >.
k 1 2 1 Solution 3: Letjthauthorbethecorrespondingauthor,then
Thisisresequencingtheauthors,theweightsremainthe same reseuencing the authors gives the following new sequence of
as providedby the a weight assignment scheme, S. Note that authors.
thenewsequenceofauthorsisshiftedtotherightinacircular
<aj,a1,ak,a2,...,aj−1,aj+1,...,ak−1 >.
fashion.
A similar solution can be obtained using resequencing of Similarly, one can work out the sequence of weights if one
weights. If the weights provided by the weight assignment wishes to use weight resequencing as follows. The largest
weight, w , is assigned to the corresponding author, a , the provided by the indexing database, and the user, if he/she
1 j
second largest weight, w , is assigned to the first author, a , wishes, can be allowed to resequence the set weights.
2 1
and the third largest weight, a , is assigned to the last author,
3
ak.Inotherwords,thesetofweightsafterresequencingthem V. CONCLUSION
is as follows.
Finding an appropriate weight assignment scheme to share
<w2,w4,w5,...,wj−1,w1,wj+1,...,wk−1,w3 >. credits among multiple authors of a paper is a challenging
task due to the fact that the conventions followed among
Similarly, there can be other scenarios, and one can think differentresearchdisciplinesorresearchgroups.Inthispaper,
of how one should resequence either the list of authors or the we described that for an unequal weight assignment scheme
set of weights which is appropriate for a particular research that generates weights in a descending order, one can use
discipline or a research group. resequencingof either authors or weights so as to conformto
Note that there can be situations where we will not rec- theconventionsfollowedbyaresearchdisciplineoraresearch
ommend the use of any of the resequencing discussed in this group. This can be done for the purpose of evaluating the
paper. An example of such a situation can be as follows. The qualityofresearchproducedbyanauthor,however,thetypeof
names of authors are listed in alphabetical order, and there resequencinguseddependsontheevaluator,andtheevaluator
is no explicit declaration about the specific contributions of can be asked to select a resequencing method by an indexing
authors. In the absence of such a declaration, one should database.
consider an equal weight assignment scheme. Actually, the
resequencing of either authors or weights is for the situations
REFERENCES
where the contributions of authors are unequal and a weight
[1] A.M.Abbas,“WeightedIndicesforEvaluatingtheQualityofResearch
assignment scheme which generates unequal weights is used.
withMultiple Authorship”, arXiv:1010.1904v1[cs.IR],October2010.
If authors were in alphabetical order, however, there is an [2] A.M.Abbas, “Generalized Linear Weights for Sharing Credits Among
explicit declaration about the contributions of authors; and Multiple Authors”,arXiv:1012.5477v1[cs.DL],December2010.
[3] E. Akhabue, E. Lautenbach, ““Equal” Contributions and Credits: An
fromthedeclaration,oneisabletodecideanunequalextentof
Emerging Trend in the Characterization of Authorship”, Annals of
contributionbytheauthorsofthepaper,thenonecanconsider Epidemiology, vol.20,no.11,pp.868-871,November2010.
touseanunequalweightassignmentscheme,inthatcase,one [4] A.E.Nudelman,C.E.Landers,“TheFailureof100DividedBy3Equal
to33−1/3”,TheAmericanSociologist,vol.7,pp.9,November1972.
can consider to apply the resequencing of either weights or
authors.
IV. APPLICATIONS OF RESEQUENCING
Asmentionedearlier,onecanconsidertousetheresequenc-
ingofeitherauthorsorweightsprovidedthatonehasdecided
to use an unequal weight assignment scheme. The modified
sequence of weights or authors can be used to compute an
index.LettherebeanindexI thatusesthenumberofcitations
ofpapersauthoredbyaresearcherina mannerthatisspecific
to the index. The citationsare consideredto be the creditsfor
authors of the papers. In case when there are more than one
authors of a paper, the credits (or the number of citations)
should be divided among the authors using an appropriate
weight assignment scheme. Let c be the number of citations
i
of ith paper of an author and w be the weight assigned to
i
the author for his/her ith paper, then the number of weighted
citationsofthegivenauthorforhis/herithpaperisasfollows.
c′ =c w .
i i i
The weighted number of citations for ith paper of the given
author,c′, shouldbe usedforcomputinga givenindex,say I,
i
following the procedure of the index I.
Thiscanbedoneforthepurposeofevaluatingthequalityof
researchproducedbyanauthor.Thetypeofresequencingused
depends on the evaluator. Further, we would like to mention
that the resequencing of either authors or weights can be
incorporatedinanindexingdatabase.Anevaluator(ortheend-
user) can be allowed to resequence either the authors or the
weights and then should be able to compute an appropriate
index. For that purpose, there can be set of default weights
