iSchool researchers explore gender gap in self-citations

Vetle Torvik
Vetle Torvik, Associate Professor
Jana Diesner
Jana Diesner, Affiliate Associate Professor

A recent publication by a group of iSchool researchers provides new insight into the claim that men self-cite their publications more often than their women counterparts. The paper, "Self-citation is the hallmark of productive authors, of any gender," coauthored by doctoral student Shubhanshu Mishra, Brent Fegley (MS/LIS '10, PhD Informatics '16), Associate Professor Jana Diesner, and Associate Professor Vetle Torvik, was published in PLOS ONE on September 26 and selected as an Editor’s Pick by PLOS Collections.

To replicate the gender gap, the researchers used a probabilistic model of self-citation based on over 1.6 million papers in PubMed with two or more authors, in which 5.5 million of the 41.6 million citations are self-citations. They found that gender has the weakest effect on the probability of self-citation among the features tested, including byline position, affiliation, ethnicity, collaboration size, time lag, subject-matter novelty, reference/citation counts, publication type, language, and venue. The features that explain most self-citations have more to do with opportunity, accessibility, and visibility than gender and culture.

Citations boost the visibility of a paper as well as the paper's author and are an essential part of scientific communication. While a gender effect exists, the researchers state that it is certainly not the "gender gap" previously noted. They conclude that self-citation is the hallmark of productive authors of any gender.

Research reported in the publication was supported in part by the National Institute on Aging of the NIH (Award Number P01AG039347) and the Directorate for Education & Human Resources of the NSF (Award Number 1348742). 

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Wong co-edits new edition of Reference and Information Services

Adjunct Lecturer Melissa Wong (MSLIS '94) and Laura Saunders, professor of library and information science at Simmons University, are the co-editors of Reference and Information Services: An Introduction, Seventh Edition, which was recently published by Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited. The textbook provides a comprehensive update to the previous edition, also co-edited by Wong and Saunders, and serves as an essential resource for LIS students and practitioners alike.

Melissa Wong

iSchool researchers to present at ASSETS 2024

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the 26th International Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) ACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024), which will be held on October 28-30 in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The conference is the premier forum for presenting research on design, evaluation, use, and education related to computing for people with disabilities and older adults.

iSchool well represented at ASIS&T 2024

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the 87th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), which will be held on October 25-29 in Calgary, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is "Putting People First: Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Care in Information Research and Practice." The meeting is the premier international conference dedicated to the study of information, people, and technology in contemporary society.

iSchool Building

Underwood to give invited talk on AI and the humanities

Professor Ted Underwood will give an invited lecture on artificial intelligence (AI) and the humanities on October 23 at the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The lecture is part of the center's "Forum on Keywords" programming for 2024-2025.

Ted Underwood

Kilicoglu group wins first place at BioLaySumm competition

The highly technical language used in biomedical publications makes it difficult for nonexpert audiences to fully understand their content and draw insights. The BioLaySumm competition focuses on making biomedical research publications more accessible to lay audiences. This year, the winning team was a group from Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu's research lab: PhD students Zhiwen (Jerome) You and Shufan Ming and Computer Science master's student Shruthan Radhakrishna. 

Halil Kilicoglu