Bibliometric indicators are increasingly used to fund and evaluate scientific research. Since the number of authors in a paper and the number of has increased it is difficult to determine the individual contribution of authors. Suggested approaches include the study of author position or the corresponding author. Our findings show that the corresponding author is most likely to appear first and then last in the byline. The results are dependent on number of authors in a paper and national differences exist. This underscores the need to take into account both the number of authors on a paper and their position in the byline to be accurate when measuring author contribution.
Adam, D 2002 The counting house. Nature 415:726–729.
Ball, P 2005 Index aims for fair ranking of scientists. Nature 436:900 .
Bhopal, R, Rankin, J, McColl, E, Thomas, L, Kaner, E, Stacy, R et al. 1997 The vexed question of authorship: views of researchers in a British medical faculty. BMJ 314:1009–1012.
Buehring, GC, Buehring, JE, Gerard, PD 2007 Lost in citation: Vanishing visibility of senior authors. Scientometrics 72 3 459–468 .
Burman, KD 1982 Hanging from the masterhead––reflection on authorship. Annals of Internal Medicine 97:602–605.
Drenth, JP 1998 Multiple authorship: the contribution of senior authors. JAMA 280:219–221 .
Gaeta, TJ 1999 Authorship: “law” and order. Academic Emergency Medicine 6 4 297–301 .
Gomez-Alonso, J. (2004). Author Author JAMA, 292, 1815.
ICMJE 1997 Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. JAMA 277:927–934 .
Kennedy, D 2003 Multiple authors, multiple problems. Science 301:733 .
Moed, HF 2009 UK research assessment exercises: informed judgments on research quality or quantity?. Scientometrics 74:153–161 .
National Science Board. (2008). Science and engineering indicators. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
Reisenberg, D, Lundberg, GD 1990 The order of authorship: who's on first?. JAMA 264:1857 .
Rennie, D, Yank, V, Emanuel, L 1997 When authorship fails––a proposal to make contributors accountable. JAMA 278:579–585 .
Shapiro, DW, Wenger, NS, Shapiro, MF 1994 The contributions of authors to multiauthored biomedical research papers. JAMA 271:438–442 .
Wren, J. D., Kozak, K. Z., Johnson, K. R., Deakyne, S. J., Schilling, L. M., & Dellavalle, R. P. (2007). The write position. EMBO reports, 8 (11): 988–991.
Yank, V, Rennie, D 1999 Disclosure of researcher contributions: a study of original research articles in the lancet. Annals of Internal Medicine 130:661–670.
Zitt, M, Teixeira, N 1996 Science macro-indicators: Some aspects of OST experience. Scientometrics 35 2 209–222 .