{"doi":"10.1101/2020.12.15.422900","title":"The rapid, massive growth of COVID-19 authors in the scientific literature","abstract":"<h4>ABSTRACT</h4> We examined the extent to which the scientific workforce in different fields was engaged in publishing COVID-19-related papers. According to Scopus (data cut, August 1, 2021), 210,183 COVID-19-related publications included 720,801 unique authors, of which 360,005 authors had published at least 5 full papers in their career and 23,520 authors were at the top 2% of their scientific subfield based on a career-long composite citation indicator. The growth of COVID-19 authors was far more rapid and massive compared with cohorts of authors historically publishing on H1N1, Zika, Ebola, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. All 174 scientific subfields had some specialists who had published on COVID-19. In 109 of the 174 subfields of science, at least one in ten active, influential (top-2% composite citation indicator) authors in the subfield had authored something on COVID-19. 52 hyper-prolific authors had already at least 60 (and up to 227) COVID-19 publications each. Among the 300 authors with the highest composite citation indicator for their COVID-19 publications, most common countries were USA (n=67), China (n=52), UK (n=32), and Italy (n=18). The rapid and massive involvement of the scientific workforce in COVID-19-related work is unprecedented and creates opportunities and challenges. There is evidence for hyper-prolific productivity.","journal":null,"year":2020,"id":6341,"datarank":1.39143155112119,"base_score":3.1354942159291497,"endowment":3.1354942159291497,"self_citation_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citation_network_contribution":0.9211074187318176,"self_endowment_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citer_contribution":0.9211074187318176,"corpus_percentile":61.2693246541904,"corpus_rank":477,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":17,"citers_with_citation_signal":12,"citers_with_endowment":12,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.6021,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-12-16","fair_score":23.3333,"fair_percentile":2.550571679859279,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":7559,"name":"Maia Salholz-Hillel","orcid":"0000-0003-1934-9504","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":5151,"name":"Kevin W. Boyack","orcid":"0000-0001-7814-8951","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11483,"name":"Jeroen Baas","orcid":"0000-0001-8005-4153","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":"green","license":"cc-by-nc-nd","views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":32.0,"fair_a":48.0,"fair_i":0.0,"fair_r":13.3333,"fair_zscore":-1.979,"fair_rationale":{"fair_score":23.33,"has_llm":true,"dimensions":{"F":{"name":"Findable","score":32.0,"criteria":[{"key":"f_has_doi","label":"Has a persistent DOI","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"DOI present","rationale":null},{"key":"f_repository_presence","label":"Indexed in repositories / literature DBs","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"datacite=0, pmcid=False, pmid=False","rationale":null},{"key":"f_persistent_ids","label":"Resolvable scholarly identifiers (OpenAlex)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no OpenAlex id","rationale":null},{"key":"f_metadata_richness","label":"Rich, machine-readable metadata","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper provides no machine-readable metadata such as structured data, controlled vocabularies, or persistent identifiers for its dataset."}]},"A":{"name":"Accessible","score":48.0,"criteria":[{"key":"a_open_access","label":"Open Access / files deposited","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"Open Access","rationale":null},{"key":"a_retrievable","label":"Free full text retrievable","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"0 OA location(s)","rationale":null},{"key":"a_access_protocol","label":"Clear data/code access protocol","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper does not specify any protocol or repository for accessing the underlying data or code."}]},"I":{"name":"Interoperable","score":0.0,"criteria":[{"key":"i_linked_data","label":"Linked datasets / DataCite relations","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"linked_datasets=0, datacite=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standard_ids","label":"References data via standard accessions","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"accessions=0, trials=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standards","label":"Standard formats, vocabularies & identifiers","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"No standard formats, vocabularies, or identifiers (e.g., ORCID, DOIs for data) are mentioned in the text."}]},"R":{"name":"Reusable","score":13.33,"criteria":[{"key":"r_license","label":"Clear, open reuse license","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no license","rationale":null},{"key":"r_downloads","label":"Demonstrated reuse (downloads)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"downloads=0","rationale":null},{"key":"r_version","label":"Versioned / maintained","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no version chain","rationale":null},{"key":"r_dataset","label":"Classified as a data resource","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"is_dataset","rationale":null},{"key":"r_reusability","label":"Data-availability statement, license & reproducibility","kind":"llm","weight":2.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"There is no data-availability statement, license, or description of reproducibility measures provided."}]}},"suggestions":["Include a data-availability statement with a link to a public repository (e.g., Zenodo, Figshare) containing the dataset and code.","Assign persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs) to the dataset and use ORCIDs for authors to improve findability.","Provide metadata in a machine-readable format (e.g., JSON-LD, RDF) using community standards like DataCite or Dublin Core.","Specify a clear access protocol, such as a Creative Commons license and instructions for downloading the data.","Use standard vocabularies (e.g., MeSH terms for COVID-19) and file formats (e.g., CSV, RDF) to enhance interoperability."],"model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","agent_version":"fair_agent_v2","fulltext_source":"abstract_only"},"fair_model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","fair_agent_version":"fair_agent_v2","fair_fulltext_source":"abstract_only","fair_has_llm":true,"fair_computed_at":"2026-06-18T00:47:08.433613Z","clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}