Author productivity in the field Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research

Abstract

The study analyses the distribution of productivity of authors in the field of HCI research as reflected in their publication output from Science Citation Index-Expanded for 2006 to 2011. The purpose of this study is to test Lotka’s law of author productivity using the methodology outlined by Pao (1985) and compare it with the modifications suggested by Nicholls (1987). A data set of 63137 articles is studied. Author productivity data is disaggregated into 21 data sets, one each for top 20 countries beside the world data set. The values of Lotka’s exponent and constant are calculated by both linear least square method and maximum likelihood method. The K-S goodness-of-fit test is conducted at the 0.10 level of significance. There is not much difference observed in the distribution of publications and the distribution obtained using Pao’s procedure and modifications suggested by Nicholls. This study finds that literature in the field of HCI research studies does conform to Lotka’s law with reliable results for 18 out of 21 data sets. So, Lotka’s law can be used in HCI research as a standardized means of measuring author publication productivity.