Title: To whom and why should I connect? Co-author recommendation based on powerful and similar peers

Authors: Rory L.L. Sie; Hendrik Drachsler; Marlies Bitter-Rijpkema; Peter Sloep

Addresses: Open Universiteit, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands. ' Open Universiteit, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands. ' Open Universiteit, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands. ' Open Universiteit, P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands

Abstract: The present paper offers preliminary outcomes of a user study that investigated the acceptance of a recommender system that suggests future co-authors for scientific article writing. The recommendation approach is twofold: network information (betweenness centrality) and author (keyword) similarity are used to compute the utility of peers in a network of co-authors. Two sets of recommendations were provided to the participants: Set one focused on all candidate authors, including co-authors of a target user to strengthen current bonds and strive for acceptance of a certain research topic. Set two focused on solely new co-authors of a target user to foster creativity, excluding current co-authors. A small-scale evaluation suggests that the utility-based recommendation approach is promising, but to maximise outcome, we need to (a) compensate for researchers' interests that change over time and (b) account for multi-person co-authored papers.

Keywords: cooperation; author networks; similarity; recommender systems; betweenness centrality; connections; new co-authors; co-author recommendations; powerful peers; similar peers; scientific articles; article writing; science; network information; author similarity; keyword similarity; peer utility; candidate authors; research topics; creativity; current co-authors; utility-based recommendations; researcher interests; researchers; multi-person papers; co-authored papers; technology enhanced learning; dataTEL; data-supported learning; R&D; research and development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTEL.2012.048314

International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 2012 Vol.4 No.1/2, pp.121 - 137

Received: 26 Mar 2012
Accepted: 17 May 2012

Published online: 31 Dec 2014 *

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