Gianluca Murgia

Gender differences in research collaboration

The debate on the role of women in the academic world has focused on various phenomena that could be at the root of the gender gap seen in many nations. However, in spite of the ever more collaborative character of scientific research, the issue of gender aspects in research collaborations has been treated in a marginal manner. In this article we apply an innovative bibliometric approach based on the propensity for collaboration by individual academics, which permits measurement of gender differences in the propensity to collaborate by fields, disciplines and forms of collaboration: intramural, extramural domestic and international. The analysis of the scientific production of Italian academics shows that women researchers register a greater capacity to collaborate in all the forms analyzed, with the exception of international collaboration, where there is still a gap in comparison to male colleagues.

The collaboration behaviors of scientists in Italy: A field level analysis

The analysis of research collaboration by field is traditionally conducted beginning with the classification of the publications from the context of interest. In this work we propose an alternative approach based on the classification of the authors by field. The proposed method is more precise if the intended use is to provide a benchmark for the evaluation of individual propensity to collaborate. In the current study we apply the new methodology to all Italian university researchers in the hard sciences, measuring the propensity to collaborate for the various fields: in general, and specifically with intramural colleagues, extramural domestic and extramural foreign organizations. Using a simulation, we show that the results present substantial differences from those obtained through application of traditional approaches.

A job shop scheduling problem with human operators in handicraft production

This paper deals with complex job shop scheduling problems. A (typically large) number of elementary tasks has to be carried out, according to precedence constraints defined by a task graph. As typical of production environments such as handicraft production and task processing requires two different resources, i.e. machines and human operators. While for each operation a given machine is specified, there are in general more human operators capable of performing it. The problem is to assign the tasks to the operators, sequence them on each operator and sequence them on each machine so that the overall makespan is minimised. This scheduling problem is NP-hard even if the task graph consists of three chains (three-job job shop), and there are two fully skilled operators. We propose two heuristics for this scheduling problem, based on two different ways of decomposing the problem. An extensive computational experience allows a comparison between the heuristic solutions and the one obtained solving a mixed-integer programming formulation of the problem. The experiments show that close-to-optimal solutions can be obtained in reasonable time on a PC. Our model is applied to a case study from leather manufacturing, and we also show its use as a decision support tool in skill planning.

Variation in research collaboration patterns across academic ranks

The ability to activate and manage effective collaborations is becoming an increasingly important criteria in policies on academic career advancement. The rise of such policies leads to development of indicators that permit measurement of the propensity to collaborate for academics of different ranks, and to examine the role of several variables in collaboration, first among these being the researchers’ disciplines. In this work we apply an innovative bibliometric approach based on individual propensity for collaboration to measure the differences in propensity across academic ranks, by discipline and for choice of collaboration forms—intramural, extramural domestic and international. The analysis is based on the scientific production of Italian academics for the period 2006–2010, totaling over 200,000 publications indexed in Web of Science. It shows that assistant professors register a propensity for intramural collaboration that is clearly greater than for professors of higher ranks. Vice versa, the higher ranks, but not quite so clearly, register greater propensity to collaborate at the international level.

The combined effects of age and seniority on research performance of full professors

In this paper we examine the relationship between research performance, age, and seniority in academic rank of full professors in the Italian academic system. Differently from a large part of the literature, our results generally show a negative monotonic relationship between age and research performance, in all the disciplines under analysis. We also highlight a positive relationship between seniority in rank and performance, occurring particularly in certain disciplines. While in medicine, biology, and chemistry this result could be explained by the ‘accumulative advantage’ effect, in other disciplines, like civil engineering, and pedagogy and psychology, it could be due to the existence of a large performance differential between young and mature researchers, at the moment of the promotion to full professors. These results, witnessed both generally and at the level of the individual disciplines, offer useful insights for policy makers and administrators in academia on the role of older professors.

The relationship among research productivity, research collaboration, and their determinants

This work provides an in-depth analysis of the relation between the different types of collaboration and research productivity, showing how both are influenced by some personal and organizational variables. By applying different cross-lagged panel models, we are able to analyze the relationship among research productivity, collaboration and their determinants. In particular, we show that only collaboration at intramural and domestic level has a positive effect on research productivity. Differently, all the forms of collaboration are positively affected by research productivity. The results can favor the reexamination of the theories related to these issues, and inform policies that would be more suited to their management.

Key-Roles in VLEs: A Metric Based on Social Network Analysis

In this paper we analyze an e-learning course for managerial education over 3 years making use of the social network analysis. Our aim is to represent the knowledge flows within a virtual learning environment and to identify some key-roles, previously highlighted by Cross and Prusak (2002) in organizational contexts. Our methodology shows the specific contribution brought by each actor to the knowledge development in a community, so it can support teachers in the development of their teaching strategies.