How are co-authored papers regarded for tenure?

An anonymous reader writes in:

I am now in the the tenure process and one question that naturally arises is the value of certain kinds of publications. Since co-authored publications become more and more common in philosophy, the question arises how they count, esp. in the tenure procedure. There was some discussion about this topic on Brian Leiter's Blog in 2013 (https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/co-authorship-in-philosophy.html). One commentator argues that co-authored papers should not count that much towards tenure because they do not demonstrate that the candidate has the potential to publish in the future. This argument rests, however, on the contingent fact that most philosophical papers are single authored. If more philosophers publish co-authored papers, the ability to contribute to such papers becomes an important aspect of successful publishing. I would thus see co-authorship is an additional skill that will become more and more important in our scholarly context. Hence, I would not value co-authored papers against single-authored papers, but see them as their "own beasts". I am curious what colleagues think about this issue

This is a good query. Although we've discussed co-authorship on at least a few occasions, I'm always happy to return to the issue because I think it's an important one. Judging from past discussions here and elsewhere, there seems to be something of a prejudice against co-authorship in philosophy, though this may be changing. In any case, having just read the Leiter thread anonymous links to in their query, I think the following comment by Mark van Roojen is probably fairly accurate:

Tenure is a global judgement, not about a person's past work, but about how they'll continue to contribute. Coauthoring a good paper where there are other single author papers of similar quality is more evidence that one will continue to contribute over time, perhaps even in a different collaborative way from the way the single author papers display. Writing *only* coauthored papers is something that less clearly presents evidence of continued contribution. The mixture seems to me greater than the sum of its parts in this context.

I'm not sure I agree with van Roojen's suggestion that only publishing co-authored papers presents less evidence of continued contribution. Most non-humanities fields are dominated by co-authored papers (so much so that single authored papers are rare), and nobody in those fields takes publishing only co-authored papers as less evidence of continued contribution. Why should it? If one is consistently publishing good co-authored work, that's evidence that one will continue to do it! Otherwise, though, van Roojen's comment is apt and supports the following advice: in terms of seeking tenure, if one publishes co-authored work, then (in philosophy at least) it is wise to have a fair mixture of co-authored work and single-authored work. Provided one has at least some single-authored work (in good venues, or otherwise having significant impact), then my sense is that co-authored work will probably be helpful toward tenure.

Finally, following a remark by Charles Pigden at thread anonymous linked to, I think it is probably a good idea to make it clear in one's tenure materials what one's contributions to co-authored work were. Did you come up with the basic argument for the paper, and simply get help on some of the technical details from co-author(s)? Or did someone else come up with the paper's main idea/argument, and you filled out some of the technical details? Or, did you only write one section of the paper (say, the objections and replies section, or in an X-Phi piece the methods section)? These are the kinds of things that tenure-committees seems likely to find relevant, and (I think) rightly so. Of course, it is always possible for a tenure candidate to lie or otherwise fudge their contributions. However, a tenure-candidate could document their contributions by, perhaps, getting letters of outside support from a couple of co-authors, perhaps.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have served on tenure committees that have dealt with these kinds of questions?

Comments

[A Non-Mouse]

Marcus Arvan: Why do you regard people as having a prejudice--a judgment formed beforehand and without knowledge of the relevant facts--against coauthored work? Why not regard them as having judgments reached as a result of thoughtful reflection and reasoning about the facts? If you don't have a good answer, perhaps you have a prejudice against their judgments.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi A Non-Mouse: We've already litigated this in an earlier thread, so I'm not sure that I will be able to say anything that will convince you to the contrary. I'm also happy admit that I may be wrong in believing that there is something prejudicial about it.

That being said, I am inclined to regard it as a prejudice because I don't think whether someone does solo- or co-authored work is, in itself, *any* reason to think they are a better or worse researcher simpliciter.

We all have different gifts. Some of us are really good at coming up with original, insightful arguments--but not so good at specific kinds of highly technical things (e.g. modal logic). Others of us are really good at those specific technical things, but not so great at coming up with original arguments. Some of us are good at coming up with really good but narrow arguments. Others of us are good systematizers. Others of us are good writers. Others of us are not so good.

I believe this is just as true in philosophy as in science. One needn't be good at *everything* all by oneself in order to be a good researcher simplicter. This is why it is standard in the sciences for people to co-author work. Some people are better coming up with good ideas for studies, others better at doing methods, others good at complex statistics, and so on. People divide their labor in the sciences because they recognize that this can be the *best way* to produce good work. I think this is just as true in philosophy, and that we shouldn't hold co-authorship against people in philosophy for these reasons any more than it would make sense to hold it against people in science (which, again, no one does).

[Untenured Ethicist]

There is no universally applicable answer to this question. Different departments and different universities have different standards. Sometimes, the people who will be voting on a tenure case disagree with each other about what the standards are. (Fun, right?)

Ask around your department about how they will regard co-authored papers. Ask more than one person. The opinion of strangers on the Internet is irrelevant.

[Brad]

Marcus
I think norms are changing around this issue. Certainly in some sub-fields, like philosophy of science, and in some places, like most of Europe, co-authored articles really are becoming so common that it would be surprising to see a young person's c.v. that does not have co-authored articles on it. Consequently, how c.v.s are judged depends very much on who is judging.
Still, I think a young person on the market who does publish a lot of co-authored pieces should aim to be the first author sometimes.

[Daniel]

I think it depends a lot on the nature of the co-authoring. If a candidate's publication record consists of a lot of co-authored pieces with the same co-author(s), who are more established in their careers than the candidate--for example, if the candidate's main co-author was also a dissertation advisor--then I think it might be reasonable to conclude that the candidate's past publication record doesn't tell you all that much about their ability to continue to contribute to the literature.

By contrast, if the candidate has co-authored with lots of different people, many of whom are at a similar or earlier career stage to the candidate, then I think these adverse inferences are much less likely/reasonable.