AUTHOR COLLABORATION IN DIGITAL LITERACY FROM 1997 TO 2013: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY

Bibliometric study isan important area in library and information science (LIS). It has a long history dating back to the early decades of the past century, from the conventional matters till today digital age. The terms ‘bibliomtetrics’ was first coined by Alan Pritchard in his 1969’s paper (Pritchard, 1969). The objective of bibliometric study is to analyse a body of literatureor scholarly worksusing quantitative methods (statistical and mathematical), to extract the possible relationships between the elements that composeit (Rader, 2002).Other definition mentioned by Wilson (cited in Andres, 2009) that it was the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication. Hence, bibliometrics isindeedveryimportantin library and information science to perform mathematical calculations on library resources. Nowadays, the studyhas been applied not only to determinethe phenomenon or scholarly communication based oninformation gathered from tangible sources but also thoseobtained from electronic information sourcessince many scholarly works today are indexed and collected by computer systems in which it is called as online databases. There is a current trend where people will be more likely to seek information on the internet. Therefore, the sources that will be examined in the present study also come from the internet through Web of Science, an online subscription-based scientific citation that consists of many scholarly online publication. Academic work increasingly relies on teamwork, just as industrial production does (Posner, 2001 cited in Andres, 2009).It is a trend today people are likely to work together with others than working alone. Especially withtodayadvanced technology devices that allowpeoplearound the world to work with.Scholars can now collaborate with others either locally or internationally. In fact, many evidences have shown that itmight result much valuablefindings through collaboration with othersthan doing it personally. In turn, it might increase the quality of knowledge and publication studiesor productivity, and improve the growth body of knowledge. The purpose of doing collaboration is to shape networked studies among scholars in the world. Sharing knowledge is not having boudaries and not limited anymore, one can now knowledge others anytime and anywhere. Various organizations either academic or non-academic fields have turned to collaboration as a way of increasing profits and creating new opportunities for growth.It is therefore important to notice that collaboration is a good option to do. Many bibliometric studies have measured of the level of author collaboration in different fields, but not one has been studying the field of digital literacy authorship pattern. As the number of digital literacy articles is increasing today over the years (see figure 1), it is therefore, the current study is aimed to measure the degree of author collaboration in this particular topic. b.Problem of StatementSince the inception of terms “digital literacy” by Paul Gilster in 1997, scholars have recognizedthat digital literacy should bebeing considered as an important aspect in any discipline.It is seen from the early observation of the study that there was an increasing trend in writing digital literacy articles from 1997 to presentdays, as provided in the line graph below. The data were found through ISI Web of Science.Figure 1. Numbers of digital literacy articles published from 1997-2013As seen in figure 1, the number of publication in digital literacy was increasing over the years and it reacehd the peak in mid 2012 in which the number of articles was above 140 articles. The first decade since it was introduced, the number of articles was under 20 articles only. Starting in mid 2007, the publication was increasing up to 20 articles. It is therefore important to know the trend of author collaboration in this particular topic. In order to know its degree, the current study will utilizeSubramanyam’s lawwhere many bibliometrics studies have also used the same law to measure the degree of author collaboration. c.Research ObjectivesThe main aim of research is to find out truth which is hidden and has not been discovered. As mentioned earlier that many studies have researched about the trend of author collaboration in any discipline, but no a single study has measured the degree of author collaboration in the field of digital literacy. The following are the objectivesof study.1.To identify the number of authors contributing 2.To determine the prolific authors 3.To determine authors by geographical location4.To determine authors by institutions 5.To determine the more productive journals d.Research QuestionsResearch questions provide a guide for conducting a literature search. It presents the problem that is being addressed and reveals possible search terms. In order to make this study more clearly, it is necessary to have research questions in which these questiones were derived from research objectives,as follows:1.What are the authorshippatterns in digital literacy?2.Who are the prolific authors in digital literacy?3.Where the more productive countries in digital literacy?4.Where the more productive institutions in digital literacy?5.Which are the more productive journals in digital literacy?e.Significance of the StudyThis research is expected to measure the degree of author collaboration in digital literacy articles from 1997-2013. By identifying the trend, it can perhaps benefit bibliometricians, scholars, teachers, or students who are involved in to explore more about the field. f.Limitation of the StudyThe termof digital literacy is definitely related to other terms such as computer literacy, library literacy, network literacy, internet literacy, hyper-text literacy, etc. However, the term is difinitely differentwith other literacies mentioned above. Its literacy has own definition as will be defined in the next chapter. In order to provide clarity about what this research is going to study, limitations of study were determined, as follows: 1.The selected data were articles and written in English language, and were indexed by ISI Web of Scienceas well2.The timespan of publication wasfrom 1997-20133.It is assumed that the selected articleswere relevant in digital literacy topic.g.Definition of TermsThis section provides definition of terms used in the study, as follows: 1.Collaboration--the action of working with someone to produce something2.Authorcollaboration--two or more people working together, either practice or theory, to produce something thatare contributing to the body of knowledge3.Single-authored papers--documents written by a oneauthor4.Multi-authored papers--documents written by more than one author5.Digital literacy--the skills, knowledge, creativity and attitudes that are necessary to beable to use digital media for learning and mastering in the knowledge society. It is literacy that is needed to be able to use new digital tools and media in a creative and critical way.2. LITERATURE REVIEWAs wasmentioned earlier that bibliometricsstudywasimportant in library and information science. There havebeen many researchers conductingsuchstudies. This chapterdiscusses previous findingson the degree of authorscollaboration in several fields.Collaboration may be used synonymously with multiple authorship (authorship, multiple) or co-authorship. It also refers to the broader concept of two or more researchers (or researchers from two or more organizations or countries) working together (Diodato, 1994). The increasing of information technology devices such as the internetis one of essential matters that will lead to an integration among scholars worldwide with different fields or organizations, and make it easier sharing information.In 1997, it was a paper entitled “what is research collaboration?”, written by Katz and Martin. It was widely assumed that collaboration in research is “a good thing” and that it should be encouraged (Katz & Martin, 1997). Many individuals have nowadays recognized the importance of doing research together. Beside to increase productivy, collaboration also can perhaps overcome the barriers that reseacher challenges. Bakri and Willet (2008) investigated the characteristics of authorshipin Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, and found that there was an increasing trend in the proportion of multi-author contribution in certain period of times. A comparative study ininformation literacy between two different fields reported that a high rate of collaboration in health sciences, but lower in social sciences (Pinto, Escalona-Fernandez, and Pulgarin, 2012).The similar findings also revealed that researchers in Malaysia tend to collaborate with others but more dominant in science-based research than social sciences (Cheng, et al., 2012). Contrary, a research revealed that collaboration with those from Muslim countries was considered low (Abu Bakar and Putri Junurham, 2013)A study reported that the degree of collaboration in Journal of Financial Crimeduring the years 2006-2010 was 0.246, which meaning that most articles in this particular journal were written by single author (Jena, Swain, and Sahoo, 2012). There was interdisciplinary trend between library and information science and other disciplines (Lariviere, Sugimoto, and Cronin,200?). Sin (200?) found that there was an increasing number in the internationalization of library and information science over the years.Most articles in LIS, in case of Bangladesh, are (86%) single authored. It proves that researchers in this particular country might not considerthat collaboration is a “goodidea”. A similar finding (Swain, Swain, and Rautaray, 2013) on authorship pattern in Library Reviewfound that the degree of collaboration of the five-year publication from 2007-2012 was 0.36. An investigation revealedthat the co-authored papers are dominated in the marine sciences literature. It is found that the average collaboration rate was 0.57, and the mean number of authors per joint authored papers was 3.4 (Elango and Rajendran, 2012). The collaboration among Iranian researchers with other researchers from overseas was quite significant, and its trend had increased between 1998 and 2007 (Hayati, and Didegah, 2010).Based on studies above that eachfield of science has a different level of author collaboration. Some studies indicateda high level of collaboration amongauthors, while others showed low levels of collaboration.Due tono one has ever measured the level of author collaboration in digital literacyfield, therefore, this study is aimedto identifyitslevel of author collaborationfor selected articles published from 1997 to 2013.a.Digital LiteracyAs a reminder, digital literacy was first introduced by Paul Gilster in 1997 as “the ability to understand and to use information from a variety of digital sources when it is presented via computers and regarded it simply as literacy in the digital age” (Gilster, 1997).He added in an interview with Pool (1997) that more important in its literacy was to evaluate and integrate information in multiple formats that computer can deliver. Digital literacy, according to Hague and Payton (2010) on their handbook, isthe ability to make and share meaning in different modes and formats; to create, collaborate, and communicate effectively and to understand how and when digital technologies can best be used to support these processes. It involves finding and selecting relevant information, critically evaluating and re-contextualizing knowledge and is underpinned by an understanding of the cultural and social contexts in which this takes place.hese individuals are said to have been “born digital” into the late twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries. They arenative speakers of Google and Youtube era. These individual are not getting difficulties to translate or learn ICT, but merely experience it, and perhaps this literacy has become a part of educational curriculum either developed or developing countries. Various terms related to digital literacy, as discussed on Bawden’s paper (2001), are information literacy itself as the root of literacy, computer literacy, library literacy, media literacy, and network literacy. However, it is important to know that the current study focuses onwhen Paul Gilster introduced the term ‘digital literacy’ in 1997 without considering the other literaciesmentionedabove, even though it might be getting involved with other traditional literacies. b.The Web of Science (WoS)The Web of Science provides access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,700 of the high impact research journals. Web of Science also provides cited reference searching for forward or backward navigation. It is available through International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)’s online databases. Many bibliometricians or scholars also used this site. Thanks to WoS that provides such advanced system to do bibliometrics study. Therefore,the study can automatically do calculating and analysing the selected data.

interface retrieval tool. The following were the steps how to gather the relevant data:1.Gathering all documents through the WoS site that was available through IIUM LibraryOnline Databases, searching ‘digital literacy’ by ‘topic’ at the right pull down option on its interface. The period of time was limited from 1997-2013 as seen in figure 2. Figure 2. The WoS’s interface retrieval tool 2.Print out the first page of total of 661 articles. It aims to surely identify whether the articles are either single-authored papers or multi-authored papers. 3.Once the data were gathered, Microsoft Excel worksheets are needed to arrange them accordingly.Besides, in conjunction with Microsoft Powerpoint, the study will provide graphs to clearly showthe findings. e.Data AnalysisIn order to measurethe degree of author collaboration in digital literacy topic, the Subramanyam’s law was used. This formulais very simple to use. Many researchers used the same formula to measure the degree of author collaboration. First of all, the study needs to know how many articles were joint-papers and how many articles were single-authored papers. By putting the numbers into this simple formula, the degree of author collaboration will soon be known.Note:-C = degree of collaboration-Nm = number of multiple-authored research papers in the discipline published during a year-Ns = number of single-authored research papers in the discipline during the sameyear (Subramanyam, 1983)4. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS a.Data AnalysisRQ1: What are the authorship patterns in digital literacy? It was found thatasmany as of 199articles were written by two authors while of 214 articles were written by more than two authors.However, there were a significant number of single-authored papers that consistedof 248 articles(see table below). It is interesting to note that the highest number of authors can be found in the article of “Policy Statement-Children, Adolescent, Substance Abuse, and the Media”, in which this articleshowed that 19 authors have contributedin this single article. Table 1. Authorship patterns’ worksheetYearSingle AuthorTwo Authors>Two AuthorsTotal199731151998000019993104200020022001121420022136NmC = -----------------Nm + Ns 20038241420043227200582919200676720200778823200817171852200924171152201025172264201139353210620125643471462013434549137TOTAL248199214661Based on the Subramanyam’s law, it was found that the degree of author collaboration in this subject was 0.623, indicating that 62.3% of the total articles were multi-authored papers. It can be said that the field of digital literacy has attracted people to be considered and they refered to work with in making the field more precisely, and it is probably the role of advanced technology today in which people have no limitation to share, knowledge, research, and carry on in anytime and anywhere. Table 2 shows that as many as of 248 articles were single-authored papers while the rest were multi-authored papers of 413 articles.It also provides the trend of authorship pattern over the years. However, in 1998 there was no single article being published. The year 2000 shows that there were only two artcles being published and were single-authored papers, and it was the least number of articles has ever published about digital literacy. Table 2. The degree of author collaborationYearSingleAuthoredMulti-AuthoredDegree OfPapersPapersCollaboration1997320.419980001999310.2520002002001130.752002240.662003860.422004340.5720058110.5720067130.6520077160.69200817350.67200924280.53201025390.6201139670.63201256900.61201343940.68TOTAL2484130.62RQ2: Who are the prolific authors in digital literacy?The study found that as many as of 500 authors have jointin writing digital literacy articles published from 1997 to 2013. The most prominent author in digital literacy was Eszter Hargittai who published 8 papers in the five different journals. She is Delaney Family Professor in the Communication Studies Department and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at the Northwestern University where recently she heads the Web Use project1. The second prominent author was Guy Merchant who wrote 6 articles. He is a professor of literacy in education, Research Excellence Framework (REF) co-ordinator and research lead for the Department of Teacher Education at Sheffield Hallam University. He specialises in research into digital literacy and is particularly interested in the inter-relations between childrenand young people, new technology and literacy2. The third one was Sonia Livingstone who published 5 articles. She is a full professor in the Department of Media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science and teachesmaster's courses in media and communicationstheory,methods, andaudiences, andsupervises doctoral students researching questions of audience, publics and users in the changing media landscape. Table 3 shows the top-10 authors who published ≥ three articles in this particular subjectTable 3. The top-10 wise authors contributed in digital literacy areaNoAuthorsPublications1Eszter Hargittai82Guy Merchant63Sonia Livingstone54Eileen Honan45Gloria E. Jacobs46Edward Alan Miller47Van Deursan Ajam 48Van Dijk Jagm49Darrel M. West410David Bawden3R3: Where the more productive countries?A total of 661 selected articles were spread in many areasall over the world. As many as of 54 countries wisely contributed to talk about digital literacy topic. The study has putthem into five Continents as seen in figure 3. The America Continents, which is the most productive area,produced 47%, followed by Europe of 29%, Australia/Oceania of 11%), Asia of 8%, and Africa of 5%, respectively. Figure 3. The scattering of 661 articles throughout the ContinentsTable 4. Countries contribution indigital literacyNoCountriesPubl.NOCOUNTRIESPubl.1USA28931BRAZIL22UK8632COLOMBIA23AUSTRALIA7633CROATIA24CANADA3934JAPAN25SPAIN1835KENYA26NETHERLANDS1636MALAYSIA27CHINA1637PAKISTAN28SOUTH AFRICA1438PORTUGAL29TAIWAN1339SERBIA210GERMANY1240SLOVENIA211NORWAY1241SWITZERLAND212FINLAND1142CYPRUS113SWEDEN1043EGYPT114INDIA744HUNGARY115ISRAEL745IRELAND116BELGIUM646MOZAMBIQUE117BOTSWANA547NAMIBIA118GREECE548NIGER 119ITALY549POLAND120NIGERIA550SAUDI ARABIA121SCOTLAND551SLOVAKIA122CHILE452SUDAN123FRANCE453SWAZILAND124MEXICO454TANZANIA125NEW ZEALAND4TOTAL68826SINGAPORE427TURKEY428IRAN329WALES330AUSTRIA2Table 4 depicts countries around the world that contributed to digital literacy. It is found that the USA was the most productive country in which it has createda totalof 289 articles related to digital literacy. It is then followed by countries that published more than 30 articles; UK, Australia, and Canada respectively. The rest were the countries that published below 20 articles. In South-East Asia, Singapore and Malaysia have published a total of 6 articles in this particular topic. AMERICA47%AFRICA5%ASIA8%AUSTRALIA11%EUROPE29%Continents Contributions However, there were several articles are joint-authors from different countries. RQ4: Where the more productive institutions?A total of 449 organizations/institutions have joint to participate in digital literacy topic. Table 5 shows the number of organizations/institutions that contribute in writing digital literacyarticles. It isdivided into twocategories; academic and non-academic organizations/institutions. Table 5. Organization/institutions contributionto digital literacyYearAcademicNonAcademicTotalInstituionInstitution199741619980001999314200020220011232002213200382102004325200582102006761320077815200817173420092417412010251742201139357420125643992013454386TOTAL250199449Of the overall total, as many as 250 academic institutions have contributed their ideas or thoughts about digital literacy, while the rest are government or privateagencies. The more productive institution was Open University that contributesa total of13 publications about digital literacy. The table 6 liststhe top-10 organizationsthat publish more than 6 articles in this particular subject. Table 6. The top-10 institutions that published articles about digital literacyNOOrganizationsRECORDS1Open University132University Illinois133Northwestern University114Monash University105Sheffield Hallam University106University North Carolina97Columbia University88University British Columbia89University Calif Berkeley810Deakin University7RQ5: Which are the more productive journals?A total of 661 digital literacy articles were scattered in the total of 264 journals. The most productive journals that have published ≥ 10 articles were listedin the table 7. The Journal of Adolescent Adult Literacy was the most productive journal in which it has published38 articles about digital literacy. Table 7. The journals that published ≥ 10 articlesNOJournalsPubl.1Journal Of Adolescent Adult Literacy382Reading Teacher263Computer Education234Comunicar185Literacy176Learning Media And Technology167Media International Australia158English Teaching Practice And Critique139Language And Education1210Electronic Library1111Journal Of Medical Internet Research 1112Library Trends1113New Media10Meanwhile, in research areas, digital literacy topic hasmuch be being considered in education fields, followed by library and nformation sciences. It can be seenin the table 8. It is assumed that those individuals ineducationalfield recognizethat digital literacy is needed to be considered as an important area nowadays as its literacytells student aboutthe skills, knowledge, creativity and attitudes thatarenecessary to be able to use digital media for learning and mastering in the knowledge society. Table 8. Research areas in digital literacyNoWoSCategoriesPubl.1Education Educational Research3202Information Science Library Science 1203Communication874Linguistics625Language Linguistics516Computer Science Information Systems407Computer Science Interdisciplinary Applications308Health Care Sciences Services299Psychology Educational2610Medical Informatics20b.FindingsThe results of this bibliometricsstudy show that the degree of author collaboration was 0.62(62%), indicating that more than a half of the total of 661 articles about digital literacy published from 1997-2013 were multi-authored papers. It mightperhaps that individualson this particular topic referedto work with other researchers. The highest number of authors can be seen in the article “Policy Statement-Children, Adolescent, Substance Abuse, and the Media”, in which this single article consists of 19 authors who have participated in writing this article.In terms of who are the prominent authors, Eszter Hargittai was the most famous writer on this particular subject who has written as many as 13 articles. She wass then followed by Guy Merchantand Sonia Livingstone who wrote 6 and5 articlesrespectively. Meanwhile, the Americas showed a huge number of publications, in which nearly half of the total article can be found in this continent. In addition, European countries were also increasingly talk-active about digital literacy. However, in the Middle-East countries, individuals did not too pay attention on digital literacy. Digital literacy was much being considered for those involved in educational matters. It can be seen that there was a large number of research publications in this area. It is perhaps, as mentioned earlier that probably digital literacy has become a part of curriculum in school class nowadays and indeed should be considered. It is therefore determined that digital literacy isbecoming part of our life in today Google era and every individual around the world is supposed to be literally digital

The bibliometricstudy is one of important area in library and information science field. One of areasin this study is to measure the degree of author collaboration in certain fields. The current study focuses on digital literacy articles thatwere being indexed bythe Web of Science’sdatabase that provided by IIUM Online Databases. The topic is indeed nowadays becoming a popular issue. It can be seen from the statistic provided early that there was an increasing number of publications about digital literacy over the years since the terms ‘digital literacy’ was first introduced by Paul Gilster in 1997, and perhaps those publications will likely continue to increase in the subsequent years.b.ConclusionResearch collaboration plays significant role for advancingknowledge. By working with other individualsor organizations, one might produce valuable or better results from scientific endeavour effectivelyand efficiently. It is widely assumed that collaboration in research should be encouraged. Many studies have been discussed about the benefit of doing joint-research. It has been observed in thisstudy that in digital literacy topic,in which individuals, organizations, and countries referred to work or share together to result scientific endeavours. Thank to today advancedtechnology that usefully help people toresearch with others cross-disciplines.Each discipline has different level of degree of author collaboration (Subramanyam, 1983). There are disciplines that have a low level of joint-authors, others havea high level of collaboration. Indeed, collaboration might produce better results as mentioned before. There will be opportunities to share knowledge, skills, and techniques of certain fields to others. Individuals can nowadays have different approaches to advance knowledge from any directions by doing joint-research. One should consider that digital literacy is one of important areas in today environment and it shouldalso be addressedas a part of information literacyas the root of any literacy. It isdue to that based on the findings thatnot only from library and information science field has contributed in discussing about digital literacy, but other disciplines, such asfrom educationalfieldshave proportionally studied in this particular topic. c.RecommendationBibliometrics study has extensive applications in identifying the treans in certain fields. This brief researchof bibliometrics isstill far from perfect. What hasbeen discoveredhere was only a generalview of the trends that exist in digital literacyarticles published from 1997-2013, particularly in degree of author collaboration. However, It is perhaps necessary to other researcers tofurther studyin digital literacy such as its content or citation analysis, or dispersion of scientific literature in this particular topic.