The (In)Significance of Socio-Demographic Factors as Possible Determinants of Vietnamese Social Scientists’ Contribution-Adjusted Productivity: Preliminary Results from 2008–2017 Scopus Data

Abstract

Abstract:As collaboration has become widespread in academia, and the number of authors per article has increased, the publication count is no longer an accurate indicator of scientific output in many cases. To overcome this limitation, this study defined and computed a relative count of publications called 'CP' (credit-based contribution points), based on the sequence-determines-credit (SDC) method, which takes into account the level of contribution of each author. Analyses were done on a sample of 410 Vietnamese social scientists whose publications were indexed in the Scopus database during 2008-2017. The results showed that the average CP of Vietnamese researchers in the field of social sciences and humanities is very low: more than 88% of authors have a CP less than five over a span 10 years. Researchers with a higher CP were mostly 40-50 years old; however, even for this sub-group, the mean CP was only 3.07. Multiple attributes of first-authorship-including knowledge, research skills, and critical thinking-could boost the CP by a ratio of 1:1.06. There is no evidence of gender differences in productivity, however, there is a regional difference. These findings offer significant insights into the education system in regard to science and technology, namely policy implications for science funding and management strategies for research funds.

Comparative Views on Research Productivity Differences between Major Social Science Fields in Vietnam: Structured Data and Bayesian Analysis, 2008–2018

“…Other studies examined the roles of collaboration, gender, age, regions, and first-authorship to the productivity of Vietnamese SSH researchers. Results suggested no difference in productivity was associated with gender; however, first-authorship and seniority (age 40 -50) appeared to have crucial contributions (Vuong et al 2017;T.-T. Vuong et al 2018). Finally, using the ordinary least squares method to analyze the institution aspect of the dataset, Q.-H. Vuong et al (2018b) found that authors who are working at research institutions had much lower scientific output than authors who are affiliated with universities.…”

Comparative views on research productivity differences between major social science fields in Vietnam: Structured data and Bayesian analysis, 2008-2018

“…Other studies examined the roles of collaboration, gender, age, regions, and first-authorship to the productivity of Vietnamese SSH researchers. Results suggested no difference in productivity was associated with gender; however, first-authorship and seniority (age 40 -50) appeared to have crucial contributions T.-T. Vuong et al 2018). Finally, using the ordinary least squares method to analyze the institution aspect of the dataset, Q.-H. Vuong et al (2018b) found that authors who are working at research institutions had much lower scientific output than authors who are affiliated with universities.…”

Research as a Base for Sustainable Development of Universities: Using the Delphi Method to Explore Factors Affecting International Publishing among Vietnamese Academic Staff

“…Vuong and his associates are among the most active in this field. Using data extracted from the Scopus database in conjunction with data from local sources such as university websites, this research team has produced a series of publications (e.g., see [3,[29][30][31][32][33] ) about the research outputs of Vietnamese social scientists and related factors.…”