3 ms·

I know nothing about this person, but if his case is the average, he's probably got a lot of grad students doing the actual work. I can't tell you how many pap

I know nothing about this person, but if his case is the average, he's probably got a lot of grad students doing the actual work. I can't tell you how many papers/patents I wrote only to be listed as the 5th contributor or some such thing.

rudyfink 5y ago
I'd love to see a paper looking at this (e.g., how often is the "primary" author the last author or is the last author a better predictor of quality than the first, if you look back historically). I suspect this is very widespread issue.
- detaro 5y ago
  If you look at the linked list of papers, the prof usually appears at the end of the list. That's common in computing fields.
- tokai 5y ago
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157712000491 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175115771...
voxl 5y ago
https://light.princeton.edu/team/ https://light.princeton.edu/team/ Visiting professor, 3 postdocs, and 9 PhD students, all of very high quality (because, well they're at Princeton). My guess is each postdoc could produce 1 to 2 papers a year on there own. A PhD student at such a difficult school can probably produce one paper a year once they are in there third year. 14 publications in 2021. Let's guess 6 of which are from postdocs, we'll say 4 of which are from PhD students, leaving us with 4 publications between both professors, or two from each. Of course, this is all very rough estimation.
- shrimpx 5y ago
  The way it likely works is the prof drives the vast majority of idea/IP development and the students do the work under the prof's guidance. Then the prof "frames" the paper and does part of the writing, especially in intro and conclusion sections. These profs likely don't drive any solo projects and don't do any prof-prof collaborations without students involved.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    The problem is we will never know what really happened. This model leads to a necessary accrual of credit to more senior researchers because the default assumption is to assume credit of a group to the more senior individual. The problem is there's no way (or less way) for the less senior individual to establish credit unless they are publishing on their own, which isn't feasible. In this way, group efforts tend to trickle toward the person in the senior position, and credit accrues to people in management of large groups irrespective of where ideas are coming from or who is doing the work. We say "someone is a great scientist" because they have an administrative position with reference to a large group. Whoever has the most papers with the largest groups wins.

rudyfink 5y ago

I'd love to see a paper looking at this (e.g., how often is the "primary" author the last author or is the last author a better predictor of quality than the first, if you look back historically). I suspect this is very widespread issue.

detaro 5y ago
If you look at the linked list of papers, the prof usually appears at the end of the list. That's common in computing fields.
tokai 5y ago
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157712000491 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175115771...

voxl 5y ago

https://light.princeton.edu/team/ https://light.princeton.edu/team/ Visiting professor, 3 postdocs, and 9 PhD students, all of very high quality (because, well they're at Princeton). My guess is each postdoc could produce 1 to 2 papers a year on there own. A PhD student at such a difficult school can probably produce one paper a year once they are in there third year. 14 publications in 2021. Let's guess 6 of which are from postdocs, we'll say 4 of which are from PhD students, leaving us with 4 publications between both professors, or two from each. Of course, this is all very rough estimation.

shrimpx 5y ago
The way it likely works is the prof drives the vast majority of idea/IP development and the students do the work under the prof's guidance. Then the prof "frames" the paper and does part of the writing, especially in intro and conclusion sections. These profs likely don't drive any solo projects and don't do any prof-prof collaborations without students involved.
- derbOac 5y ago
  The problem is we will never know what really happened. This model leads to a necessary accrual of credit to more senior researchers because the default assumption is to assume credit of a group to the more senior individual. The problem is there's no way (or less way) for the less senior individual to establish credit unless they are publishing on their own, which isn't feasible. In this way, group efforts tend to trickle toward the person in the senior position, and credit accrues to people in management of large groups irrespective of where ideas are coming from or who is doing the work. We say "someone is a great scientist" because they have an administrative position with reference to a large group. Whoever has the most papers with the largest groups wins.