title: Determining scientific impact using a collaboration index.
abstract: Researchers collaborate on scientific projects that are often measured by both the quantity and the quality of the resultant peer-reviewed publications. However, not all collaborators contribute to these publications equally, making metrics such as the total number of publications and the H-index insufficient measurements of individual scientific impact. To remedy this, we use an axiomatic approach to assign relative credits to the coauthors of a given paper, referred to as the A-index for its axiomatic foundation. In this paper, we use the A-index to compute the weighted sums of peer-reviewed publications and journal impact factors, denoted as the C- and P-indexes for collaboration and productivity, respectively. We perform an in-depth analysis of bibliometric data for 186 biomedical engineering faculty members and from extensive simulation. It is found that these axiomatically weighted indexes better capture a researcher's scientific caliber than do the total number of publications and the H-index, allowing for fairer and sharper evaluation of researchers with diverse collaborative behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stallings
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vance
authors.forename: Jiansheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Vannier
authors.forename: Jimin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Liaojun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pang
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D001319:Authorship / Q000592:standards; D015706:Bibliometrics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004526:Efficiency; D006801:Humans; D055811:Journal Impact Factor; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D017712:Peer Review, Research / Q000379:methods; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012108:Research Personnel / Q000592:standards