A validation of coauthorship credit models with empirical data from the contributions of PhD candidates

Abstract

A perennial problem in bibliometrics is the appropriate distribution of authorship credit for coauthored publications. Several credit allocation methods and formulas have been introduced, but there has been little empirical validation as to which method best reflects the typical contributions of coauthors. This paper presents a validation of credit allocation methods using a new data set of author-provided percentage contribution figures obtained from the coauthored publications in cumulative PhD theses by authors from three countries that contain contribution statements. The comparison of allocation schemes shows that harmonic counting performs best and arithmetic and geometric counting also perform well, while fractional counting and first author counting perform relatively poorly.