Scholarly Impact of Student Participation in Radiation Oncology Research

Publication date: Available online 6 March 2018
Source:International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics
Author(s): M. Paracha, K.N. Kim, M.M. Qureshi, A. Shah, A. Agarwal, T. Sachs, S. Sarfaty, A.E. Hirsch
IntroductionLiterature evaluating student authorship has used the H-index (Hi), a measure of scholarly impact. However, student authorship over time is less well defined. In this study, we evaluated the rate of non-doctoral student authors publishing in an academic journal over time. Additionally, we analyzed the effects student authors have on the scholarly impact of corresponding authors (CA) by comparing their respective Hi.MethodsWe created a database of authors that published articles in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics (IJROBP) in 2006, 2010, and 2014 that included CA, degree and student author designations. CAs' Hi were obtained from Scopus (scopus.com). Student authorship rates were compared between the sampled years. The data was divided into two groups, CA publishing with student authors (SA) and those without (nSA). CAs' median and mean Hi with standard deviation (sd) and a 95% confidence interval (CI) were compared between SA and nSA.ResultsA total of 1,728 published articles were identified with 1,477 unique CA. Percentage of published articles with student authors increased from 44.4% in 2006, 52.9% in 2010 to 55.9% in 2014, p=0.0003. In overall analysis, mean Hi was higher for SA as compared to nSA (24.3 vs. 22.9), although this did not achieve statistical significance (p=0.094). Mean Hi (sd) in 2006, 2010 and 2014 were 27.9 (16.6), 23.6 (16.7) and 18.5 (14.6), respectively. Mean Hi was significantly higher for SA compared to nSA in years 2006 (29.5 vs. 26.6, p=0.048) and 2010 (24.9 vs. 21.9, p=0.038) but not in 2014 (18.5 vs. 18.4, p=0.963).ConclusionStudent authorship rates in IJROBP are increasing. The data suggest that student participation in research may benefit both corresponding and student authors. Creating and expanding research programs to integrate research into medical education may enhance students' experience and encourage interest in radiation oncology.

Teaser

Student authorship rates over time are ill defined. This is an analysis of the effects of student authorship on scholarly impact in radiation oncology by comparing the H-indices of corresponding authors in IJROBP that published with and without student authors in 2006-2014. Students are not a detriment to scholarly productivity; student authorship rates increased and corresponding authors publishing with student authors had higher H-indices compared to those that did not publish with student authors.


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