Team size matters : collaboration and scientific impact since 1900

This paper provides the first historical analysis of the relationship between collaboration and scientific impact, using three indicators of collaboration (number of authors, number of addresses, and number of countries) and including articles published between 1900 and 2011. The results demonstrate that an increase in the number of authors leads to an increase in impact–-from the beginning of the last century onwards—and that this is not simply due to self-citations. A similar trend is also observed for the number of addresses and number of countries represented in the byline of an article. However, the constant inflation of collaboration since 1900 has resulted in diminishing citation returns: larger and more diverse (in terms of institutional and country affiliation) teams are necessary to realize higher impact. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential causes of the impact gain in citations of collaborative papers

Conducting Information Systems Research the Old-Fashioned Way

This research career retrospective summarizes the intellectual contributions of the author’s academic career, covering 35 years from the early 1980’s onwards. It also attends to various incidents and conditions that shaped his research career, as well as his research strategy choices that allowed him to overcome some of the challenges imposed by these conditions. These strategic choices comprised to do small research rather than big research and to privilege international collaboration over local collaboration

The Interdependence of Scientists in the Era of Team Science: An Exploratory Study Using Temporal Network Analysis

How is the rise in team science and the emergence of the research group as the fundamental unit of organization of science affecting scientists’ opportunities to collaborate? Are the majority of scientists becoming dependent on a select subset of their peers to organize the intergroup collaborations that are becoming the norm in science? This dissertation set out to explore the evolving nature of scientists’ interdependence in team-based research environments. The research was motivated by the desire to reconcile emerging views on the organization of scientific collaboration with the theoretical and methodological tendencies to think about and study scientists as autonomous actors who negotiate collaboration in a dyadic manner. Complex Adaptive Social Systems served as the framework for understanding the dynamics involved in the formation of collaborative relationships. Temporal network analysis at the mesoscopic level was used to study the collaboration dynamics of a specific research community, in this case the genomic research community emerging around GenBank, the international nucleotide sequence databank. The investigation into the dynamics of the mesoscopic layer of a scientific collaboration networked revealed the following—(1) there is a prominent half-life to collaborative relationships; (2) the half-life can be used to construct weighted decay networks for extracting the group structure influencing collaboration; (3) scientists across all levels of status are becoming increasingly interdependent, with the qualification that interdependence is highly asymmetrical, and (4) the group structure is increasingly influential on the collaborative interactions of scientists. The results from this study advance theoretical and empirical understanding of scientific collaboration in team-based research environments and methodological approaches to studying temporal networks at the mesoscopic level. The findings also have implications for policy researchers interested in the career cycles of scientists and the maintenance and building of scientific capacity in research areas of national interest

A qualitative case study of UK university academics’ collaborative practices: a social-psychological perspective

This thesis analyses the social-psychological processes in the journey of the collaborative practices of 12 British University academics working at a university located in south-east England (henceforth, SEE University). This study stresses the importance of what happens behind the scenes of collaboration. It endeavours to explore (i) the values and qualities of the partners with whom the participants collaborate; (ii) the spaces and disciplines wherein these collaborations take place; and (iii) their motives for choosing to engage in collaboration. To achieve the aims of the study and address the research questions, a qualitative case study methodology was used. The data were collected through a series of semi-structured face-to-face and online interviews before and during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the participants seem to focus more on three main social-psychological processes shaping their collaboration journey rather than only the outcomes produced, and that their feelings and behaviours appear to determine the quality of their collaboration. Therefore, understanding the three core elements in the journey of collaboration – ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ – prior to initiating collaboration appears to be necessary. That is, this research strives to supply the missing piece of the collaboration puzzle. Regarding the ‘who’, findings show that it is important for participants to choose the right academic collaborative spouses with whom they can collaborate effectively. As for the ‘where’, the data demonstrate that participants cross two types of boundaries when collaborating. These are ‘spatial’ and ‘disciplinary’. The ‘why’ findings describe the motives triggering participants to collaborate. These are ‘expressive’ and ‘instrumental’. However, participants’ accounts show that the ‘who’ seems to outweigh both the ‘where’ and ‘why’. The originality of the study lies in that the latter takes a novel approach to exploring how the participants collaborate – social psychology, wherein the focus is on how academic Selves and Others influence one another’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours when collaborating. This thesis, therefore, attempts to produce a reaction to the collaboration that the participants build to gain a deeper understanding of what occurs in the journey of producing intangible as well as tangible outcomes. Contribution-wise, all my participants and I co-developed a flexible 3W model (Who, Where, and Why) that future researchers can apply when studying collaboration or similar social or academic phenomena. In light of the research findings, there are implications at two levels – theoretical and practical implications. Implications at the theoretical level concern the new social- psychological insights that the findings can add to the concepts that were used to make sense of the data, namely, Social Capital (SC), Human Capital (HC), Communities of Practice (CoPs), and Oldenburg’ Concept of First, Second and Third Place. Implications at the practical level are related to implications of the findings on academics to consider when engaging in collaboration. These implications have to do with the significance of ‘understanding the social psychology of collaboration’, ‘personality compatibility in collaboration’, ‘nomadicity’, ‘university financial support for international collaboration’, ‘implications of Covid-19 on collaboration’, and ‘balancing expressive and instrumental collaboration’. Overall, the findings of the study can be used to help academics reframe and rethink collaboration at tertiary level and raise their awareness about the significance of the ‘right’ academics with whom they should collaborate, ‘where’ they need to collaborate, and, most importantly, ‘why’ they choose to collaborate

Experiences of Japanese Visiting Scholars in the United States: An Exploration of Transition

Thesis advisor: Philip G. AltbachThe purpose of this study is to examine the reasons why Japanese visiting scholars visited the United States, their activities and experiences during their visits, their challenges and support for their transition, and personal and contextual factors that affected their transition in different stages. Although short-term international scholar mobility has recently increased, there are few studies on the population of international visiting scholars. In addition, while there is an overall increase in the number of international scholars, the number of Japanese scholars is decreasing. This qualitative study explores the Japanese visiting scholars' experiences of transition by drawing upon Schlossberg's adult transition model (e.g., Anderson, Goodman, and Schlossberg, 2011). The findings show that the purpose of visit and activities during the visits varied by individuals, although most activities were individual and professional ones, such as conducting research, networking, and teaching. While the first-time visiting scholars engaged in English practice and observation of cultural differences, the scholars with family members reported social experiences through their children's schools. Several scholars worked on institutional relations during their visits. The challenges that the visiting scholars faced varied by the timing during their transition. Common challenges included finding opportunities at their home institutions, finding the host universities, setting up life in a new community, finding opportunities for interactions, and dealing with language and cultural issues. The expected challenges after their returning to home were mainly related to institutional arrangements and societal differences. The factors that influenced their transition included the arrangements at home and host institutions, academic fields, past American academic experiences, existing networks with Japanese and American colleagues, and their personalities. Recommendations are provided for American and Japanese universities, individual visiting scholars, and the Japanese government. As for implications from this study, since the Japanese visiting scholars mostly relied on their personal connections and previous experiences for transitions, in order to utilize international visiting scholars for short-term brain circulation, institutional and governmental support and policy arrangements need to be structured as a part of the initiative for the internationalization of higher education.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education

International Collaborations Between Research Universities: Experiences And Best Practices

The world science scenario has observed, in recent years, an important transformation. With the advent of fairly complete publication databases and the improvement of the Internet a number of world university rankings were created, with a clear bias towards research universities. Also, a new field of scientometrics has been developed, and recent studies have clearly demonstrated that the impact of a publication increases if it is written by authors of more than one country. A general overview of the research collaboration landscape is presented, considering the advantages and problems of international cooperation and the role of research universities. In particular, the case of Ibero-America is explained, with a detailed focus on Brazil. 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