Authorship Trends Over the Past 30-Years in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering

Abstract

In academia, manuscripts serve as an important component of career development. The past several years have seen heightened evaluation of the role of the gender gap in career advancement, as well as other bibliometric changes in publications. We therefore analyzed authorship and publication trends in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering over the past three decades (one complete year of manuscripts for each decade; 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016). The variables analyzed were number of authors per manuscript, numerical position of the corresponding author, number of collaborating institutions and countries, number of references, and number of citations per manuscript. The gender of both the first and corresponding authors was identified and analyzed over time and by region. Globally, the percentage of female first and corresponding authors significantly increased from 0% in 1986 to 28.6% (p = 0.003) and 20.4% (p = 0.0009), respectively, in 2016. Although there were significant differences regarding female first and corresponding author over time, they did not vary by region of origin (p = 0.5 and 0.2, respectively). Overall, these findings highlight the improvements made and the challenges that still exist related to publishing within the bioengineering field.

Keywords: Author; Bibliometric analysis; Female; Gender; Publication trends.

FIGURE 1.

Maps showing the countries and states/provinces from which publications originated: A) North America; B) Europe; C) Asia; and D) Oceania. Black represents the highest percentage of manuscripts while white indicates no manuscripts were published in the country or state/province.

FIGURE 2.

Bibliometric trends over time. A) Number of authors and corresponding author position. B) Number of countries from which authors on manuscripts reside and the number of institutions collaborating on published manuscripts. C) Number of pages in the published manuscripts. D) Number of references cited within each manuscript. E) Number of times each published manuscript was cited in other manuscripts (normalized by the age of the manuscript). The data are the mean ± 1 standard deviation.

FIGURE 3.

Trends by region. A) Number of authors and corresponding author position. B) Number of countries from which authors on manuscripts reside and the number of institutions collaborating on published manuscripts. C) Number of pages in the published manuscripts. D) Number of references cited within each manuscript. E) Number of times each published manuscript was cited in other manuscripts (normalized by the age of the manuscript). The data are the mean ± 1 standard deviation. North America = NA, EU = Europe, OC = Oceania.

FIGURE 4.

Percentage of female first and corresponding authors by time and region. A) Gender distribution of first authors over time. B) Gender distribution of first authors by region. C) Gender distribution of corresponding authors over time. D) Gender distribution of corresponding authors by region.

FIGURE 5.

Gender combinations between first and corresponding authors over time. MM = both first and corresponding authors are male, MF = first author is male and corresponding author is female, FM= first author is female and corresponding author is male, and FF = both first and corresponding authors are female.

FIGURE 6.

A) Changes in gender composition over time for first and corresponding authors and Editorial Board members. B) Percentage of females serving as ORS president, first author, or corresponding author over time. FA denotes first author, CA denotes corresponding author, EDT denotes Editorial Board, P denotes president, F denotes female, and M denotes male.