Determining gender in academic authorship: a comprehensive and methodical approach

What is it about?

This study introduces an advanced method for ascertaining the gender identity of scientific authors of academic papers indexed in Web of Science or Scopus. The process aimed to improve gender information retrieval, thereby benefiting gender-based bibliometric studies. A sample of 187 authors was examined using two identification methods: manual examination, and R scripts performing queries in different databases. Gender verification involved consulting databases such as Scopus, ORCID, VIAF, Wikidata, and Gender-API. Findings revealed that manual checks achieved a 100% while the R script's gender identification accuracy was 42.24% in Wikidata, and 30.48% in VIAF. Although manual checks are comprehensive, automated scripts querying multiple databases proved valuable, expanding the scope of gender identity detection. The study underscores the need for more accessible data, including linked open data, to refine author gender identification within the scientific domain. This dual-method approach highlights the potential for combining manual and automated techniques to enhance gender identification accuracy in academic authorship.

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