Authorship and Collaborative Patterns in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal,

Authorship and Collaborative Patterns in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 1996-2013 Kotti Thavamani The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R Medical University India kottithavam@gmail.com ABSTRACT: Bibliometric techniques were applied to analyze the authorship trend in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) during the period of 1996-2013. A total of 133 articles and 221 authors in the Journal were examined by year and volume to ascertain authorship patterns, author productivity, and degree of collaboration. The average number of authors per paper is 1.661% and the average productivity per author is 0.601%. The average degree of collaboration is 0.443 during the period under study. I. Introduction The Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) is a peer-reviewed open access e-journal. CLIEJ was launched in 1996 and published biannually (June and December) by the Internet Chinese Librarians Club. It is a scholarly journal in English devoted to the various fields of library and information science. It focuses on both the realistic and the academic aspects of international librarianship. It publishes research findings, case studies, book reviews, and technical procedures by faculty, researchers, and students. CLIEJ is indexed and abstracted by Google Scholar, Ebsco s Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Wilson s Library and Information Science Index (LISH), and CSA s Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) and listed in Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ (DOAJ), and Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Educational Technology and Library Science. II. Literature Review Singh (2013) analyzed the various bibliometric components of the articles published in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal between 2009 and 2012. Hussain and Fatima (2011) studied the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal for the period of 2006-2010 and revealed various aspects of the Journal, such as its distribution of article by year, authorship patterns, distribution of contributions by institution, subject distributions, citation patterns, length of article, rank of cited authors, and geographical distributions of authors. Vimala and Pulla Reddy, V (1996) traced authorship pattern and collaborative research in zoology with a sample of 19,323 journal citations figured in the theses on zoology accepted for the award of the doctoral degree by Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India (p. 1). 1

Zafrunnisha and Pulla Reddy (2009) studied the authorship pattern and collaborative research in the field of psychology. Ramakrishnan and Thavamani (2013) conducted a bibliometric analysis of the literature output in the field of Hepatitis C covered in the Journal Viz., Gastroenterology. Amsaveni and Vasanthi (2013) revealed the trend in authorship pattern and collaborative research in network security with a sample of 8051 articles downloaded from the database of web of knowledge during 2002 to 2011 (one decade) with 5343 LCS and 44721 TGCS measure (p. 52). Karisiddappa, Maheswarappa, and Shirol (1990) studied the authorship pattern and collaborative research in psychology, based on the data collected from Psychological Abstracts for the year 1988. Thavamani and Velmurugan (2013) studied the publication trends of scholarly papers in Annals of Library and Information Studies published in New Delhi, India through a bibliometric analysis of 310 contributions in the journal during the year 2002 2012. Tamilselvi and Nithyanandam (2013) demonstrated and elaborated on the various aspects of the Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, such as its distribution of articles by year, authorship patterns, citation analysis, and geographical distribution of authors. Bakri and Willett (2008) studied the Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science from 2001 to 2006 and analyzed the range of articles published per volume, average number of references per article, average length per article page; percentage of multi-authored papers, and geographical affiliation. Jena (2006) studied the Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research from 1996 to 2004 and traced the trend of publications such as year wise distribution of articles, bibliographical distribution of citations, authorship pattern, citation pattern, average length of articles, number of tables and figures used, time lag, geographical distribution of authors and subject analysis (p. 38). Mahapatra and Jena (2006) studied the growth of scientific research literature on Orissa published during 1985-2004. It includes 875 research papers from forty different journals. The authorship pattern, year-wise growth, subject-wise breakup of papers, category of journals, place of origin, length of papers, and productivity of journals have been analyzed. Nosheen and Sajjad (2011) studied 111 articles in the Pakistan Journal of Library and Information Science published from 1995 to 2010 and traced the author productivity, extent of authors collaboration, authors institutional affiliation, authors geographic affiliation, type of publication, language of papers, number of citations used per article, length of papers, and year-wise distribution of papers (p. 1). Rattan and Gupta (2012) studied the Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science from 2007 to 2011 and found that out of 100 articles, single authors contributed 27 (27%) articles while the rest 73 (73%) articles are contributed by joint authors (p. 307). 2

Singh, Sharma, and Kaur (2011) did a citation analysis of 487 articles published in the Journal of Documentation from 1996 to 2010. Oyeniyi and Olaifa (2012) studied the 2000 2010 NIAE proceedings and traced the number of articles published per year, pattern of authorship, and collaborative degree and strength of authors. There are a total number of 589 articles published by 1315 authors in the years under study (p. 115). Pradhan, Panda, and Chandrakar (2011) studied the trends in authorship pattern and author s collaborative research in Indian chemistry literature with a sample of 53,977 articles downloaded from SCI-Expanded database in Web of Science during the period 2000-2009 (p. 691). III. Objectives of the Study The objectives of the present study are as follows: To study research article contributions by year and issue To study authorship patterns by year and issue To study author productivity To study authorship by country To identify most prolific contributors, and To identify degree of author collaboration IV. Research Methodology The data was collected from the website of the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (CLIEJ) (http://www.iclc.us/cliej/). Thirty-six (36) issues from eighteen (18) volumes from 1996 to 2013 have been selected for the study. Research article contributions by issue and year, number of authors, authorship patterns by volume, authorship patterns by country, author s productivity, most prolific contributors, and degrees of author collaboration were recorded. These data were organized, calculated, tabulated, analyzed, and presented by using simple arithmetic and statistical methods. V. Data Analysis and Findings Table 1. Contribution of Research Articles by Year and Issue Sl. No. Year Issue No. No. of Research Articles Total Percentage (%) 1 5 1 1996 5 3.759 2 -- 3 2 2 1997 3 2.255 4 1 5 1 3 1998 2 1.503 6 1 7 -- 4 1999 1 0.751 8 1 9 -- 5 2000 0 -- 10 -- 6 2001 11 -- 1 0.751 3

12 1 7 2002 13 1 14 2 3 2.255 8 2003 15 1 16 1 2 1.503 9 2004 17 2 18 3 5 3.759 10 2005 19 5 20 1 6 4.511 11 2006 21 2 22 9 11 8.270 12 2007 23 6 24 6 12 9.022 13 2008 25 6 26 5 11 8.270 14 2009 27 7 28 4 11 8.270 15 2010 29 6 30 7 13 9.774 16 2011 31 7 32 6 13 9.774 17 2012 33 8 34 9 17 12.781 18 2013 35 8 36 9 17 12.781 18 Years 36 Issues 133 133 100.00 Graph 1. Contribution of Research Articles by Year Table 1 and Graph 1 show the growth of research articles published in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal from 1996 to 2013. Altogether, there are 133 research articles. The highest number of research articles (17, 12.781%) was published in 2012 and 2013 while the lowest number (0, 0.00%) of research articles in the year of 2000. 4

Table 2. Authorship Patterns by Year/Volume Sl. Authors per Article Total No. of Total No. of Year Volume No. Single Two Three Four Five Papers (%) Authors (%) 1 1996 1 5 5 (3.759%) 5 (2.273%) 2 1997 2 3 3 (2.255%) 3 (1.364%) 3 1998 3 2 2 (1.503%) 2 (0.909%) 4 1999 4 1 1 (0.751%) 1 (0.455%) 5 2000 5 -- -- -- 6 2001 6 1 1 (0.751%) 1 (0.455%) 7 2002 7 3 3 (2.255%) 3 (1.364%) 8 2003 8 2 2 (1.503%) 2 (0.909%) 9 2004 9 4 1 5 (3.795%) 6 (2.727%) 10 2005 10 4 2 6 (4.511%) 8 (3.636%) 11 2006 11 7 4 11 (8.270%) 15 (6.818%) 12 2007 12 5 4 3 12 (9.022%) 22 (10.000%) 13 2008 13 6 2 2 1 11 (8.270%) 20 (9.091%) 14 2009 14 5 4 2 11 (8.270%) 19 (8.636%) 15 2010 15 5 6 1 1 13 (9.774%) 24 (10.909%) 16 2011 16 4 6 3 13 (9.774%) 29 (13.182%) 17 2012 17 8 6 2 1 17 (12.781%) 30 (13.574%) 18 2013 18 9 3 4 1 17 (12.781%) 31 (14.027%) Total 74 38 12 8 1 133 (100.00%) 221 (100.00%) 5

Graph 2. Authorship Patterns by Year/Volume Table 2 and Figure 2 show the distribution of research articles by year and volume and the authorship patterns of the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal from 1996 to 2013. It is clear that the number of research articles has been increased over the years. It indicates also that of the 74 contributions of single authors, volume 18 has the highest number (9, 12.162%) while volumes 4 and 6 have the lowest number (1, 1.351%). Of the 38 research articles contributed by two authors, volumes 15, 16, and 17 have the highest number (6, 15.789%) while volume 9 has the lowest number (1, 2.632%). Of the 12 research articles contributed by three authors, volume 18 has the highest number (4, 33.333%) while volume 15 has the lowest number (1, 8.333%). Table 3. Authorship Patterns Sl. No. Author Total Percentage (%) 1 Single Author 74 55.639 2 Two Authors 38 28.571 3 Three Authors 12 9.022 4 Four Authors 8 6.015 5 Five Authors 1 0.751 Total 133 100.00 6

Graph 3. Authorship Patterns Table 3 and Graph 3 show that the majority of the research articles were written by a single author (74, 55.639%), followed by two authors (38, 28.571%), three authors (12, 9.022%), and four authors (8, 6.015%). The lowest number of contributions were made by five authors (1, 0.751%). Table 4. Author s Productivity Sl. No. Year Total No. of Papers Total No. of Authors with % AAPP* Productivity per Author 1 1996 5 5 (2.273) 1.000 1.000 2 1997 3 3 (1.364) 1.000 1.000 3 1998 2 2 (0.909) 1.000 1.000 4 1999 1 1(0.455) 1.000 1.000 5 2000 -- -- 0.000 0.000 6 2001 1 1 (0.455) 1.000 1.000 7 2002 3 3 (1.364) 1.000 1.000 8 2003 2 2 (0.909) 1.000 1.000 9 2004 5 6 (2.727) 1.200 8.333 10 2005 6 8 (3.636) 1.333 0.750 11 2006 11 15 (6.818) 1.364 0.733 12 2007 12 22 (10.000) 1.833 0.545 13 2008 11 20 (9.091) 1.818 0.550 14 2009 11 19 (8.636) 1.727 0.579 15 2010 13 24 (10.909) 1.846 0.542 16 2011 13 29 (13.182) 2.231 0.488 17 2012 17 30 (13.636) 1.765 0.567 18 2013 17 31 (13.636) 1.823 0.548 7

Total 133 221 1.661 0.601 Notes: *Average Authors per Paper (AAPP) = Number of authors/number of papers. Productivity per author = Number of papers/number of authors. Graph 4. Author s Productivity Table 4 and Graph 4 show the data related to author s productivity. The total average number of authors per paper is 1.661 and the average productivity per author is 0.601. The highest number of author s productivity (31, 0.548%) was in 2013. The minimum number of author s productivity (1, 1.000%) was in 1999 and 2001. Table 5. Most Prolific Authors Sl. No. Name No. of Contributions Country Rank 1 Junlin Pan 4 United States 1 2 Zhixian Yi 4 United 1 States/Australia 3 Dillip K. Swain 3 India 2 4 Haipeng Li 3 United States 2 5 Haiwang Yuan 3 United States 2 6 Jian Anna Xiong 3 United States 2 7 Khalid Mahmood 3 Pakistan 2 8 Lisa Zhao 3 United States 2 9 Munira Nasreen Ansari 3 Pakistan 2 10 Xuemao Wang 3 United States 2 11 Akhtar Hussain 2 Saudi Arabia 3 12 Arundhati Kaushik 2 India 3 13 Chanda Arya 2 India 3 14 Chang Su 2 United States 3 15 Devendra Kumar 2 India 3 16 Gang Wan 2 United States 3 17 Ifijeh Goodluck Israel 2 Nigeria 3 8

18 Iyoro Abiodun Olaide 2 Nigeria 3 19 Lian Ruan 2 United States 3 20 Nishat Fatima 2 India 3 21 Qianli Hu 2 United States 3 22 Saima Qutab 2 Pakistan 3 23 Shuyong Jiang 2 United States 3 24 Superna Sharma 2 India 3 25 Wendy Tan 2 United States 3 26 Wenxian Zhang 2 United States 3 27 Zahid Ashraf Wani 2 India 3 28 Single Author 155 -- 4 Contributions Total 221 -- -- Table 5 shows that a total of 221 authors have contributed 133 research articles over a period of eighteen years (1996-2013). The most prolific authors are Junlin Pan (United States) and Zhixian Yi (United States/Australia). Each of them has contributed 4 research articles. They are followed by eight authors: Dillip K. Swain (India), Haipeng Li (United States), Haiwang Yuan (United States), Jian Anna Xiong (United States), Khalid Mahmood (Pakistan), Lisa Zhao (United States), Munira Nasreen Ansari (Pakistan), and Xuemao Wang (United States), each of whom have contributed 3 research articles. Besides, there are seventeen authors who have contributed 2 research articles each. And the remaining 155 research articles have been contributed by single authors. Table 6. Authorship by Country Sl. No. Country No. of Contributions Percentage (%) 1 United States 75 33.936 2 India 52 23.529 3 Nigeria 39 17.647 4 Pakistan 25 11.312 5 China 15 6.787 6 Bangladesh 3 1.357 7 Canada 3 1.357 8 United Kingdom 3 1.357 9 Turkey 2 0.904 10 Australia 1 0.452 11 Botswana 1 0.452 12 Fiji 1 0.452 13 Saudi Arabia 1 0.452 Total 221 100.00 9

Graph 5. Authorship by Country Table 6 and Graph 5 show the distribution of authors by country. The 133 research articles were contributed by 221 authors from 13 countries. The highest number of authors (75, 33.936%) were from the United States/Australia, followed by India (52, 23.529%), Nigeria (39, 17.647%), Pakistan (25, 11.312%), and China (15, 6.787%), etc. The lowest number of contributions (1, 0.452%) were from Australia, Botswana, Fiji, and Saudi Arabia respectively. Table 7. Single and Multi-Authored Research Articles by Year Single Authored Multi Authored Sl. No. Year Articles % Articles % Total % 1 1996 5 6.756 -- -- 5 3.759 2 1997 3 4.054 -- -- 3 2.255 3 1998 2 2.702 -- -- 2 1.503 4 1999 1 1.351 -- -- 1 0.751 5 2000 -- -- -- -- -- -- 6 2001 1 1.351 -- -- 1 0.751 7 2002 3 4.054 -- -- 3 2.255 8 2003 2 2.702 -- -- 2 1.503 9 2004 4 5.405 1 1.694 5 3.759 10 2005 4 5.405 2 3.389 6 4.511 11 2006 7 9.459 4 6.779 11 8.270 12 2007 5 6.756 7 11.864 12 9.022 13 2008 6 8.108 5 8.474 11 8.270 14 2009 5 6.756 6 10.169 11 8.270 15 2010 5 6.756 8 13.559 13 9.774 16 2011 4 5.405 9 15.254 13 9.774 17 2012 8 10.810 9 15.254 17 12.781 18 2013 9 12.162 8 13.559 17 12.781 Total 74 (55.639%) 100.00 59 (44.360%) 100.00 133 100.00 10

Graph 6. Single and Multi-Authored Research Articles by Year Table 7 and Graph 6 show single and multi-authorship pattern by year. Single authored articles (74, 55.639%) were dominant in early years. Since 2006, there is a remarkable increase of multi-authored articles. In fact, in 2007 and 2009-2012, there were more research articles contributed by multi-authors. Table 8. Degree of Author Collaboration Sl. No. Year Single Authored Paper (N s ) Multi Authored Papers (N m ) Total (N m +N s ) Degree of Collaboration 1 1996 5 -- 5 0.00 2 1997 3 -- 3 0.00 3 1998 2 -- 2 0.00 4 1999 1 -- 1 0.00 5 2000 -- -- -- 0.00 6 2001 1 -- 1 0.00 7 2002 3 -- 3 0.00 8 2003 2 -- 2 0.00 9 2004 4 1 4 0.250 10 2005 4 2 6 0.333 11 2006 7 4 11 0.364 12 2007 5 7 12 0.583 13 2008 6 5 11 0.455 14 2009 5 6 11 0.545 15 2010 5 8 13 0.615 16 2011 4 9 13 0.692 17 2012 8 9 17 0.529 18 2013 9 8 17 0.470 Total 74 59 133 0.443 Table 8 shows the degree of author collaboration in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal. 11

To determine the degree of collaboration in quantitative terms, the formula given by K. Subramanyam (1983) was used. The formula is Where NM C = Degree of collaboration C = NM = Number of multi authored papers NM + NS NS = Number of single authored papers C = 59 133 In the present study the average value of C is C = 0.443 As a result, the average degree of author collaboration in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal is 0.443, which clearly indicates its dominance upon single authored contributions. However, multi-authored articles have been increased in recent years. In 2012, there were 8 single authored articles and 9 multi-author papers, and in 2013, there were 9 single authored articles and 8 multi-author articles. VI. Conclusion The Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal has been growing over 18 years from publishing 5 research articles in 1996 to 17 research articles in 2013. The authorship patterns have changed, too, from the predominant single authors in early years to increased multi-author collaboration in recent years. From 1996 to early 2008, the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal published articles mostly from Chinese American authors. Since late 2008, it started accepting research articles from any countries, thus becoming a real international journal. As of today, there are 13 countries contributing research articles to the journal, including 75 (33.936%) authors from the United States, 52 (23.529%) from India, 39 (17.647%) from Nigeria, 25 (11.312%) from Pakistan, and 15 (6.787%) from China. References Amsaveni, N.; & Vasanthi, R. (2013). Authorship pattern and collaborative research in the field of network security. Indian Journal of Applied Research, 3(1), 52 54. Bakri, A.; & Willett, P. (2008). The Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science 2001-2006: A bibliometric study. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 13(1), 103-116. Hussain, Akhtar, Fatima, Nishat, and Kumar, Devendra, (2011) Bibliometric analysis of the Electronic Library journal (2000-2010). Webology, 8(1), Article 87. Available at: http://www.webology.org/2011/v8n1/a87.html Hussain, Akhtar; & Fatima, Nishat. (2011). A bibliometric analysis of the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal (2006-2010). Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 31. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej/cl31hf.pdf 12

Jena, Kamal Lochan. (2006). A bibliometric analysis of the journal Indian Journal of Fibre and Textile Research, 1996-2004. Annals of Library and Information Studies, 53(1), 22-30. Available at: http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/6019/1/alis%2053%281%29%2022-30.pdf Karisiddappa, C. R.; Maheswarappa, B. S.; & Shirol, M. V. (1990) Authorship pattern and collaborative research in psychology. IASLIC Bulletin, 35(2), 73-78. Mahapatra, R. K.; & Jena, Padmanav. (2006). Scientific research productivity on Orissa: A bibliometric analysis. Annals of Library and Information Studies, 53(1), 18-21. Available at: http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/6018/1/alis%2053%281%29%2018-21.pdf Nosheen, Fatima Warraich; & Sajjad, Ahmad. (2011). Pakistan Journal of Library and Information Science : A bibliometric analysis. Pakistan Journal of Library & Information Science, 12, 1-7. Available at: http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/pjlis/pdf/pjlis-12-warraich1.pdf Oyeniyi, J. Oluwakemi; & Olaifa, Taye Paul. (2012). Collaborative strength and pattern of authorship among agricultural engineers in Nigeria: A case study of the 2000-2010 NIAE proceedings. International Journal of Library and Information Science, 4(6), 115-120. Available at: http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1379687217_oyeniyi%20and%20olaifa.pdf Pradhan, Pallab; Panda, Saroj; Chandrakar, Rajesh. (2011). Authorship pattern and degree of collaboration in Indian chemistry literature. Proceedings of the 8th International CALIBER - 2011, Goa University, Goa, March 02-04, 2011, 691-699. Available at: http://ir.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/handle/1944/1656/64.pdf?sequence=1 Ramakrishnan, J.; & Thavamani, K. (2013). Growth of literature in the field of Hepatitis-C. Library Philosophy and Practice. Available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2312&context=libphilprac Rattan, Gurjeet Kaurl; & and Gupta, Kamini. (2012). Bibliometric analysis of Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science 2007-2011. International Journal of Information Dissemination and Technology, 2(4), 307-312. Singh, Har. (2013). A bibliometric analysis of the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 2009-2012. Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 35, 16-27. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej/cl35singh.pdf Singh, Neeraj Kumar; Sharma, Jyoti; & Kaur, Navneet. (2011). Citation analysis of Journal of Documentation. Webology, 8(1), Article 86. Available at: http://www.webology.org/2011/v8n1/a86.html Subramanyam, K. (1983). Bibliometric study of research collaboration: A review. Journal of Information Science, 6, 33-38. 13

Tamilselvi, A.; & Nithyanandam, K. (2013). Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 2007-2012: A bibliometric study. Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Library Services, SALIS 2013 NGLIS August 16-17, Chennai. Thavamani, K.; & Velmurugan, C. (2013). Authorship pattern and collaborative research work in Annals of Library and Information Studies. Proceedings of the National Conference on Next Generation Library Services, SALIS 2013 NGLIS August 16-17, Chennai. Tiew, W. S.; Abrizah, Abdullah; & Kiran, Kaur. (2002). Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 1996-2000: A bibliometric study. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 6(2), 43-56. Verma, Neerja; Tamrakar, Rajnish; & Sharma, Priyanka. (2007). Analysis of contributions in Annals of Library and Information Studies. Annals of Library and Information Studies, 54(2), 106-111. Vimala, V.; & Pulla Reddy, V. (1996). Authorship pattern and collaborative research in the field of zoology. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 1(2), 43-50. Zafrunnisha, N.; & Pulla Reddy, V. (2009). Authorship pattern and degree of collaboration in psychology. Annals of Library and Information Studies, 17(1), 255-261. degre of collaboration Author: Dr. Kotti Thavamani, Ph.D., Library Assistant in Regional Medical Library, The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R Medical University, No. 69, Anna Salai, Guindy. Chennai 600 032. Tamil Nadu. India. Email: kottithavam@gmail.com Submitted to CLIEJ on 7 December 2013. Copyright 2013 Kotti Thavamani Thavamani, Kotti. (2014). Authorship and collaborative patterns in the Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 1996-2013. Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 37. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej/cl37thavamani.pdf 14