Jointly published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Scientometrics,

and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht Vol. 52, No. 3 (2001) 395–410

Elite researchers in ophthalmology: Aspects of publishing

strategies, collaboration and multi-disciplinarity
MARI DAVIS, CONCEPCIÓN S. WILSON

School of Information Systems, Technology and Management University of New South Wales
Sydney (Australia)

This study covers a ten-year period, 1990-1999, of the publishing careers of nine authors who
appear in the top-20 most productive authors in the field of ophthalmology. In this paper we
discuss findings from a study of the publishing careers of elite researchers in the field of
ophthalmology. The paper highlights the extent and nature of the journals in which these elite
researchers publish their work. Data derived from the study include indications of
multidisciplinary involvement or ‘work-space’ interests, publication characteristics, and
collaborative engagement with others. We provide insights into the workings of author
productivity, characteristics of papers such as numbers per paper of pages, references, and
authors, and initial findings about their collaboration patterns. These findings, showing
(ir)regularities or patterns in publishing careers, may be of interest to researchers and practitioners
because they provide a view that might not otherwise be apparent to the field or to authors
themselves.

Introduction

Bibliometric indicators are used extensively to judge research performance in a

range of research policy contexts. There are pitfalls when trying to compare
performance across different disciplines, particularly across the divide between the so-
called ‘hard’ sciences and the social sciences. Ideas about productivity in research have
been mainly based on single discipline studies and focused almost entirely on traditional
models of how science functions. In fields with a strong multidisciplinary participation,
there is little data on actual or expected productivity patterns, nor on the range of other
fields or disciplines in which researchers participate. Our preliminary study of the

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M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

literature of the vision sciences* (Davis et al., 1999) suggests that the differences in
scholarly communication among fields affect both publication and citation rates and
thus that the current indices of research provide a less than accurate picture. We have
selected the domain of the vision sciences to investigate a range of issues, and to gather
relevant data that will respond to questions about the appropriateness of current
measures of research performance. This paper describes a study that is part of the
broader Vision Sciences Project. It focuses on some micro-aspects of collaboration and
collaborative behaviour among a small group of elite researchers in the field of
ophthalmology in one country, Australia. It also describes specific aspects of their
publications over a ten-year window from 1990-1999.

Prior work in the Vision Sciences

Few bibliometric studies of the vision sciences or of its various sub-fields have been
made. An Australian study conducted by Australian Science and Technology Council
(ASTEC 1989) reveals that Australian production in ophthalmology as compared with
world contributions in 1984 was 1.3%. Recent work (Davis et al., 1999) suggests that
Australia’s contributions to this field have remained stable at around 2 per cent over the
1990s. In our earlier study (Davis et al., 1999) authors’ institutions were categorized
according to types. This categorization indicated that authors working in hospital
environments are significant contributors to the field of ophthalmology, for example
more than half the authors gave a university address as the first-named affiliation
(56.2%) and more than one quarter, hospital addresses (26.5%). Fewer than 7% had an
address that was either a medical clinic or practice; nearly 9% gave the address of a
research agency; the number of industry or government addresses is negligible. The elite
researcher case study sample reflects similar affiliation patterns as seen for the data
taken for 1991-1995. A problem for the counting and categorization of author addresses
is that the number of joint appointments to universities and hospitals common in

* The vision sciences are concerned with all aspects of one of the most important sensory functions, vision.
The domain is a dynamically growing consortium of fields; it makes research discoveries and develops
technologies to improve human sight and to provide instruments and materials for optical purposes. Fields
and specialties involved range across optometry, ophthalmology, neuroscience, optics, molecular and cellular
biology, bioengineering, biostatistics, and psychological and sociological aspects, among others.
Applications in the areas of robotics, computer modeling, neuroimaging, visual perception, psychophysics,
and medicine are pursued. Thus the vision sciences involve disciplines and sub-fields ranging from the
harder end of the medical and physical sciences to the softer end of the disciplinary spectrum in psychology
and sociology. The various fields that contribute to vision science belong to a domain that is highly active
and has many interdisciplinary research fronts.

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 M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

Australian remains hidden because the ISI data do not allow for automatic extraction of
multiple address information. This problem was refined in the elite case study by hand
counting all address elements (see Methods section below).
The general trend observed from the data from the earlier study shows Australian
authors in the field of Ophthalmology and Optometry collaborating with researchers in
25 other countries, in the main with English-speaking nations, such as the US, UK,
Canada and India (Davis et al., 1999). Australian ophthalmology researchers were
shown to collaborate with other Anglophone nations, e.g. the United States, United
Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales), Canada and India. Australian collaboration,
th
however, is not restricted to English-speaking nations. For example, Israel ranked 12
as collaborating partner with Australia in 1991-1995. Among the top non-English-
speaking nations with which Australia collaborates in research publication are:
Germany, Italy, Japan, PR China, Sweden, Finland, Israel, Switzerland and France. In
general, however, involvement outside Anglo-American and European countries was
low. In contrast to low international cooperation, Australian authors frequently
collaborated with other Australians, either within or external to their own institutions
and across the various States of Australia.
A small descriptive study of a single journal by Kumar and Akhtary (1998)
examined several characteristics of the journal, American Journal of Ophthalmology,
over a two-year period. However, their study is of a single journal with limited analysis
of publication or journal characteristics. Nevertheless, some of Kumar and Akhtary’s
findings show similar patterns to those found by this study of outstanding Australian
researchers.

Methods

This paper discusses findings from a case study of elite Australian researchers in
ophthalmology to illustrate publication activity of high flyers over a 10-year period from
1990-1999. Elite researchers for this study were defined as the top-producing authors in
terms of numbers of publications in the field over the period examined. Case study
authors were chosen from among the top-20 Australian researchers identified for 1991-
1995 (ISI Citation Index data). Full document entries for all relevant publications were
downloaded from DIALOG’s files, SCI and SSCI, using a search strategy of single and
double initials plus surname (family name) for the authors selected for investigation.
Documents retrieved were limited to articles (original papers) in English as defined by
ISI. Data extracted from these records focused on the following variables: author
position in the by-line of authors, author affiliations, article characteristics (e.g. number

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M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

of pages, references, authors), journals used for publication, and collaboration. Data on
collaboration were taken from the field “Corporate Source” by counting each line of the
affiliation addresses; we included the number of times every institution, faculty,
department or center was mentioned so that we might obtain an overview of the
engagement of case-authors with others in the author by line. Although it is known that
the corporate source field contains only partial listings of author affiliations, and that
there are inaccuracies or variations in wording, nevertheless the data allowed us to gain
a better understanding of internal domestic collaboration activity as well as external or
international collaborative activity.
Co-authorship was assumed to represent scientific or research collaboration at the
level of experimentation, writing up and responsibility for findings. In the study we
sought to establish some informal benchmarks of publication activity for
Ophthalmology, such as co-authorship patterns and reference activity that might be used
for comparison in further studies. It should be noted that the case study authors might
have published other papers in journals not represented in the ISI Citation Indexes.
However, we believe that the journal articles represented by the ISI Citation Indexes
will be representative of overall scholarly communication and collaborative patterns.

The sample

Nine elite Australian researchers in the field were selected for examination on the
basis of high rates of publication activity; all were ranked in the top-20 authors for the
period 1991-1995. Authors selected were ranked in the top 3, the middle 3 and the last 3
of the top-20 list. For this examination, only original articles in English were examined.
The authors are senior researchers with at least 20 years or more working
experience. Most are affiliated with universities as professors, readers or research
fellows of Departments, mainly in Ophthalmology, Optometry, or Visual Science. They
reside in different institutions in five different States of Australia. Several of them also
list hospitals among their affiliation addresses (as a second affiliation). Two appear to
be practitioners who list their consulting rooms as first affiliation (corporate source)
address, but who have collaborative ties with a range of hospitals, both private and
public. Three are Directors of research units or centers with significant numbers of staff
and international reputations. Most are eminent in their field, having received their share
of honours and awards. Their curriculum vitae indicate international experience in a
number of countries and significant involvement in professional associations both in
Australia and internationally. In short, these authors are outstanding researchers who
may not be representative of overall productivity patterns in this field. However, their

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 M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

publication activity provides interesting insights about publication outputs, collaborative

activity, multidisciplinary involvement, authorship patterns, and referencing activity in
the field of ophthalmology and optometry.

Results

There are some interesting differences among these elite authors in relation to
publishing activity, which are described below. To preserve anonymity, authors’ names
are not disclosed and are ranked according to the absolute number of their publications
for the period.

Author position

Multiple authorship of articles is a strong feature of this sample. The majority of the
papers examined are multiply authored (ranging from just two to more than 50 authors
in some instances). For six of the nine authors, being 3rd, 4th or 5th and later-named
authors accounts for the largest proportion of authorship positions. Several patterns of
authorship emerged (see Figure 1). Single authorship is rare over the period examined.
Co-authorships ranged from two authors to more than 120. These authors maintained a
level of authorships up to, but generally not exceeding, 10 partners. Authorships of 11
and more authors are rare in this sample.
These authors publish a large proportion of their papers where they appear as the
last-named author, (ranging from 15% to 75%). Only one of the nine authors shows
lower than 20% of papers as last-named author; most have above one third to three
quarters of papers as last author. The finding of high multiple-authorship is similar
to that found for a study of the American Journal of Ophthalmology for the years
1994-1995. Kumar and Akhtary (1998) found that multiple-authored papers were the
dominant form of authorship (p. 202). The other side of the coin of last-author position
is that these authors show lower incidence of being first, or second-named authors. The
rate of first authorship is generally below or at 20% for six of the author sample; for 2 of
the authors, first authorship is around 40% and the remaining author, 20% of papers.
These authors have lower rates of being second-named author, ranging from almost 12%
of output to around 25% for seven of the nine authors; the exceptions here are Author 4
where second authorship is at 30% of output, and Author 9 with more than half (55% of
output).

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M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

Figure 1. Position of author name in by-line, 1990-1999

Reference practice

Reference activity is of immense interest to researchers because citations have been

used to measure the extent of use of a paper, its impact or ‘influence’. By extrapolation,
the citation impact is also often used to denote ‘quality’. Mean references per article,
over the 10-year period, for case study authors are between 10 and 40 items, showing
great variability in range of possible reference patterns (see Figure 2). An interesting

Figure 2. Mean references per article, 1990-1999, by author

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 M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

feature of the sample is that three authors exhibit lower numbers of references per paper
than others; two of them, being private practitioners, are more likely to be writing
papers that are addressed to their fellow practitioners where the inclusion of references
is not seen as necessary. There is great variability as indicated by the standard
deviations of the yearly means of references, usually in excess of 5 and up to 30 in some
years. The variability of end-of-article references is related to large differences in the
numbers of references among articles ranging from 89 items (Author 2) to no references
at all (Authors 4 and 6 presented no references with articles in some years). The study
did not type articles according to purpose. However, review papers of course include
more references than papers describing research results. There were a number of papers
with very large numbers of references that might indicate review articles (e.g. above 70
references in several papers). No noticeable growth or decline in the numbers of
references per paper was noted over the period.

Co-authorship and collaboration

Ophthalmology, as illustrated by these case studies, is a highly collaborative

enterprise. The mean authors-per-paper ranges from around 3 to 5 authors over the
period studied. However there is great variability in the number of authors (standard
deviations fluctuate widely as shown in Figure 3). The interesting finding is not the
collaborative nature of the field – all medical fields show this characteristic – but the
composition of the collaborative combinations as shown in this sample of elite
Australian researchers.

Figure 3. Mean authors per article, 1990-1999, by author

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In terms of within-country collaboration, it was found that the majority of

collaborations were between Australian researchers and Australian institutions (see
Table 1). Australian collaborations are mainly between the home institution and other
institutions within the same State, namely universities, hospitals, research centers and
clinics, or groups practicing privately. Over 95% of Australian collaborations were
within the home state and home institution of the target authors of the case study. The
international collaboration has two interesting features – the first in dispersion (number
of countries with which collaborations are effected) and strength of collaborative ties
(number of times the selected authors co-authored papers with a country). Author 1
collaborated with researchers from 21 overseas countries. Nearly 40% of collaborations
for Author 1 were with the United States (see Table 1). There is less inter-state
collaboration than one might expect, except for articles coming from Cooperative
Research Centres whose remit is to collaborate among their partner institutions among
university, industry and research sectors within Australia, and in some instances with
overseas institutions. The inclusion of a CRC affiliation in the corporate source can be
said to indicate inter-institution collaboration. Again the most prolific author of the case
examples was active in collaborating with researchers in every State of Australia
represented in the study. Four authors did not collaborate outside their home States.

Journal range

The health of a field is indicated by the number of actively publishing journals in the
field and the number of core journals. As the previous study showed (Davis et al.,
1999), the field is served by about 42 journals (categorized by ISI as in the field of
Ophthalmology). Of these journals, the top 20 journals in world terms form the set of
core journals for the field. The case study authors publish widely in a range of journals
within the field and beyond. Case study authors publish mainly in journals that are
indexed by the Science Citation Index and less frequently in journals that lie outside the
top ophthalmology set as selected and indexed by ISI (e.g. Journal of Glaucoma).
Findings indicate that the authors examined publish around three quarters of their
articles in the World Top 20 journals for ophthalmology, which places their work
clearly in the international set of articles that defines the progress of ophthalmology.

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Table 1
Collaborations of case study authors among Australian states and internationally, 1990-1999

Collaborative Connections A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9

Australia / States
NSW 6 4 86 41 40
Qld 2 20
SA 1 2 49 1
Vic 310 1 10 37 1
WA 3 183 63
Australia (total connections) 322 188 65 86 49 30 41 37 42
Percent Home State 96.3 97.3 96.9 100 100 66.7 100 100 95.2
Austria 1
Belgium 1
Brazil 5
Burkina Faso 1
Canada 2
Finland 1 1
France 2 1 1
Gabon 1
Germany 5 3 1
India 3 4
Indonesia 3
Israel 1 1
Japan 1
Liberia 2
Malaysia 1
Mauritius 1
Nepal 2
The Netherlands 2
New Zealand 1
Oman 2
Samoa 1
Singapore 1
Spain 1
Sudan 1
Sweden 4
Switzerland 2
Tanzania 10
United Kingdom 6 3 2 2 5
United States 244 3 2 6 3 8
Total other countries 295 14 2 17 10 8 10 0 0

Percent other countries 47.8 6.9 3.0 16.5 16.9 21.1 19.6

Total affiliative connections 617 202 67 103 59 38 51 37 42

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Table 2
Top journals used by sample authors, 1990-1999

Ulrich’s Journal A.1 A.2 A.3 A.4 A.5 A.6 A.7 A.8 A.9 Num. %
classifications titles papers total
papers

Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. ANZ Journal of Ophthalmol. 21 16 8 2 9 13 10 79 17.44%

Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Amer.Journal of Ophthalmology 7 1 2 10 2.21%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Archives of Ophthalmology 12 3 1 16 3.53%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Brit. Journal of Ophthalmology 6 8 1 1 4 3 23 5.08%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Cornea 3 4 5 2 3 17 3.75%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Current Eye Research 1 7 1 6 3 18 3.97%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Experimental Eye Research 3 9 1 6 19 4.19%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Eye 1 4 2 1 1 9 1.99%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. International Ophthalmology 4 1 5 1.10%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Investigative Ophthalmology 6 7 12 4 1 1 10 41 9.05%
& Visual Science
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom.; Journal of Cataract 5 2 1 2 3 13 2.87%
Med.Sci - Surgery & Refractive Surgery
Physics - Optics Journal Optical Soc. Amer. 5 5 1.10%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom.; Journal of Refractive Surgery 6 1 2 9 1.99%
Med.Sci. - Surgery
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom.; Ophthalmic & Physiol. Optics 10 10 2.21%
Physics - Optics
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom.; Ophthalmic Surgery (& Lasers) 1 3 2 6 1.32%
Med.Sci - Surgery
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Ophthalmology 7 2 1 3 3 1 17 3.75%
Med.Sci - Ophth&Optom. Optometry & Vision Science 1 13 10 24 5.30%

Total journals used in period 44 39 15 16 18 7 11 7 7

Top journals used 12 15 5 10 8 5 4 5 5

Percent of top journals used 27.3 38.5 33.3 62.5 44.4 71.4 36.4 71.4 71.4

As Table 2 shows, this sample of elite authors also publishes many of their research
papers in domestic or regional journals with seven out of the nine authors publishing a
significant amount of their work in domestic journals (18.5% of all journals used
by this case group). However, a third of case study authors published little or nothing
in the domestic literature preferring to publish within international journals.
In the earlier study, it was shown that the ANZ Journal of Ophthalmology* has a
high ranking among journals in which Australians publish (see Davis et al., 1999).

* ANZ Journal of Ophthalmology is an ISI-selected journal in the field of Ophthalmology.

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Table 3
Disciplines and fields in which case study authors published journal articles, 1990-1999

Ulrich’s Classifications 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot

MEDICAL SCIENCES
MedSci - General 8 5 1 1 1 1 2 19
MedSci - Ophthalmology & Optometry 17 20 7 12 11 5 4 6 7 89
MedSci - Allergology & Immunology 3 1 2 6
MedSci - Cardiovascular Disease 1 1 2 4
MedSci - Communicable Diseases 9 2 1 12
MedSci - Endocrinology 1 1 2
MedSci - Experimental Medicine 1 1 1 3
MedSci - Oncology 1 1
MedSci - Psychiatry & Neurology 1 1 2
MedSci - Radiology & Nuclear Medicine 1 1
MedSci - Surgery 2 3 2 2 1 1 3 14

% Medical Sciences 86 63 63 90 83 88 64 100 100

BIOLOGY
Bioengineering 1 1
Biological Chemistry 3 3
Biotechnology 3 3
Botany 1 1
Cytology & Histology 2 1 1 4
Genetics 2 2
Microbiology 2 2 1 5
Physiology 3 1 4
Zoology 1 1

% Biological Sciences 4 23 26 11 9 0 46 0 0

OTHER FIELDS
Chemistry, Organic 1 1
Engineering 1 1
Engineering Mechanics & Materials 1 1
Chemical Engineering 1 1
Laboratory Technique 1 1 2
Pharmacy & Pharmacology 1 1 1 3
Physical Fitness & Hygiene 1 1
Physics, Optics 1 1 2
Plastics 1 1
Public Health & Safety 3 3
Science, Comprehensive Works 1 1 2

% Other fields 10 15 11 0 9 13 9 0 0

Number of disciplines or fields 12 16 6 6 11 4 7 2 3

Non-Medical Classifications (N) 4 12 5 1 2 1 4 0 0

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M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

This case study, which examines a ten-year period, confirms this trend. The ANZ
Journal of Ophthalmology accounts for over 17% (79 papers) of all journals used for
publishing papers among the nine authors examined. In terms of disciplinary allegiance,
these case authors published the major part of their research in journals defined by
Ulrich’s as ‘Medical Science – Ophthalmology and Optometry’ (see Table 2). Of the
journals used most frequently by the case authors, only one was not from the
ophthalmology field; and this journal was used by only one of the case authors.

Multidisciplinarity

A level of interdisciplinary activity is indicated through the number of contributions

to journals of other fields, for example, in several fields within general medicine, the
biological sciences, e.g. biomaterials, microbiology, and in pharmacy and
pharmacology. Amick (1974. p. 9) identified the notion of scientific mission as a two-
fold concept reflecting firstly, a subjective perception of a scientist’s position on the
disciplinary continuum, and secondly, the breadth of a scientist’s ‘work-interest’ space,
represented by the spread of his interests around that disciplinary position.
Classifications assigned to journals by Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory
were used to inform this ‘work-interest’ analysis. The work-interest space in which these
nine elite authors publish is shown in Table 3. All nine authors published the main
percentage of their work in journals classified within Medical Science fields. Four of
these authors publish over 80% of their work in medical science fields, three about 63%
of their publication output and for two authors, 100% of their output is published in
journals classified in medical science fields. Of the medical science fields, the major
publishing category is Ophthalmology & Optometry, which shows the largest proportion
of output for all case study researchers (mainly between 35% and 71%). One author
(Author 8) publishes mainly in this field with one journal also represented in Surgery.
Other medical sciences illustrate the spread of interests, among which Allergies &
Immunology, Communicable Diseases, and Surgery are well represented.
The Biological Sciences are also well represented in the work of several authors
(e.g. Authors 2, 3 and 7). Only three of the case study authors did not publish in journals
with biological science classifications (Authors 6, 7 and 8). Other classifications are
also shown as part of the work-interest space of these elite researchers with Chemistry,
Pharmacy, Engineering and Materials Science featuring among the journals in which
they publish. Three authors (Authors 1, 2 and 7) exhibit broad work-interest space with
strong involvement among the medical science fields, biological sciences and others

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also. Overall, the work of this set of elite researchers is firmly in the field of
ophthalmology, but their interests are wide ranging and they engage in fields where their
contributions enhance their ophthalmic interests in fields as diverse as Biology,
Engineering and Pharmacology.

Discussion

It is hard to make a definitive interpretation as to the meaning of the high number of

last-named authorships in this small sample of authors. In some laboratories, being last-
named author is seen to indicate senior standing as a researcher indicating among other
things high seniority associated with major supervisory roles within laboratory
experimentation in which there are a number of doctoral candidates and junior
researchers. However, this is not always so. Sometimes senior researchers defer to co-
workers in author positioning because they want their junior colleagues to gain visibility
in the field. Another reason is because earlier-named authors are engaged in the nitty-
gritty work of experimentation but under guidance of more senior researchers. Many
senior researchers actively provide junior co-workers with opportunities for writing
journal articles for publication.
Vinkler (1993), in his study of team cooperativeness and authorship, found that first
authors perform about 70% of the total work needed for two-authored papers decreasing
with larger numbers of authors. What does this finding of a high proportion of last-
named authors mean in terms of contribution to articles as published? Are the case
study authors ‘major’ contributors to the work or does their position as last in the author
statement merely represent their senior status as funders and facilitators?
Could it be said that groupings of more than 10 authors is not a usual pattern for
ophthalmology / optometry authorships? How can more than 15 or so authors actually
contribute to the writing of an article in any real sense? Harsanyi (1993) discusses the
literature that addresses problems relating to the concept of authorship. She shows that
for many researchers authorship is bound up with considerations about the ethics of
scientific publication, the problem of ‘paper inflation’, and of determining responsibility
for the quality or veracity of the work to which they append their names. For example,
Author 1 appears in an authorship by-line of more than 20 authors on 7 occasions,
including three papers that list 96, 110 and 123 authors respectively. We find it difficult
to imagine that this author actually participated meaningfully in the research or
experimentation relating to these articles and certainly cannot think that he had much
input to the writing of these articles. A relevant question is: Where does one draw the
line at “reasonable” authorship patterns in a field or discipline?

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M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

In relation to collaboration, this case study indicates that Australian researchers in

the fields of ophthalmology and optometry concentrate most of their collaborative effort
within their home institutions with a small amount of collaborations with hospitals or
research agencies within their home State. Reasons for this high internal collaboration
may be due to several factors. The potential for developing strong working relations
among overseas colleagues is hampered by the fact that Australia is far from the main
Anglo-American research institutes and universities. There is perhaps less opportunity
for face-to-face contact than in former decades. The cost of attending conferences and
forging relationships in the northern hemisphere is high. Furthermore, Australia in the
last two decades educates more of its doctoral candidates at home, while fewer
postdoctoral scholarships nowadays are taken in institutions outside the country.
There is little comparative data about average numbers of authors per paper, pages
per articles, references or journals used for publication of an author’s oeuvre. Further in-
depth work is needed of publication activity among academic groupings. Qin (1994)
noted the trend toward interdisciplinarity since the 1960s and found the phenomenon to
be associated with the average number of authors per paper. Our case study has not
examined this correlation but it could provide an interesting line of investigation.
Further, Yitzhaki’s 1995 paper on number of references and length of journal articles
also offers a possibility to test whether meaningful correlations might be drawn among
numbers of authors and references, and among numbers of pages of articles and
references.

Conclusion

We have only scratched the surface to date. Our work is ongoing. The data gathering
is being extended to cover 20 elite authors over a 20-year period from 1980-1999.
Among the benefits of such a project in the domain of vision science is the potential for
the research and professional community to discover new perspectives on their own
domain and its sub-fields. As individual practitioners, they may not readily grasp the
extent and other characteristics of disciplines or fields as a whole, or the full range of
disciplinary and interdisciplinary connections. More work needs to be done on author
productivity across a range of authors with different rates of publication to identify more
clearly general characteristics of scholarly communication practice in the field.
We intend to augment our case study by looking at citation data for the case authors
and by examining many aspects of a research and publication career. We also plan to
expand the sample to include other highly published authors. In the next phase, we will
be investigating factors such as impact or influence of authors and specific papers from

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 M. DAVIS, C. S. WILSON: Elite researchers in ophthalmology

their oeuvre. We plan to also gather qualitative data through personal interviews with
selected authors in a study to clarify the meanings attributed by authors themselves of
authorship and collaborative activities across a research and publishing career.
The study to date, we believe, provides initial benchmarks from which changes in
the field of ophthalmology, optometry and associated fields can be charted in the future.
As our work progresses, data from a number of fields in the vision sciences will be
added to a body of empirical studies that may shed new light into the links among
disciplines, fields and sub-fields, among journals and citing authors, and among research
institutions and countries that contribute to the broad literature of vision sciences. It
should be possible to illustrate the extent to which researchers engage in collaborative
activity beyond their own countries, the formation of new coalitions (either tightly or
loosely connected) among fields, institutions or authors, and whether fields remain
separated by traditional disciplinary structures. Finally, the project as it progresses will
provide new analysis and interpretation on the evolving domain of vision sciences in the
health, medical, physical and social sciences.

An Australian Research Council Small Grant 1999-2001, administered through the University of New
South Wales, has supported the Vision Science Research Project. Members of the Bibliometric & Informetric
Research Group (BIRG) are conducting this Project at UNSW.

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Received July 17, 2001.

Address for correspondence:

MARI DAVIS
School of Information Systems, Technology and Management
University of New South Wales
Sydney, 2052 Australia
E-mail: m.davis@unsw.edu.au

410 Scientometrics 52 (2001)