Perceptions on the Trend of Multi-Authored Collaboration: Results from a National Survey of Criminal Justice and Criminology Faculty

Abstract

Perceptions of the collaborative research trend and personal rationales for authorship collaboration were examined in a sample (n = 542) of Criminal Justice and Criminology faculty members. Collaboration was pervasive across the sample with approximately half reporting that collaboration was involved in a majority of their published works. Generally, collaboration is perceived to be a combination of social research networks and more pragmatic concerns (ease of collaboration and increasingly diminishing time to do research due to university obligations). Results are disaggregated by academic rank, research orientation, and collaboration involvement. Preliminary evidence of a “culture of collaboration” is presented and discussed.