Exploring scientists' working timetable: Do scientists often work overtime?

TL;DR

This study introduces a real-time monitoring method using download data to analyze scientists' working hours, revealing prevalent overtime work and distinct patterns across countries.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to studying scientists' working habits through real-time download data, uncovering global overtime work patterns.

Findings

Many scientists work beyond regular hours daily.

Overnight work is common among US scientists.

Chinese scientists often work during weekends.

Abstract

A novel method is proposed to monitor and record scientists' working timetable. We record the downloads information of scientific papers real-timely from Springer round the clock, and try to explore scientists' working habits. As our observation demonstrates, many scientists are still engaged in their research after working hours every day. Many of them work far into the night, even till next morning. In addition, research work also intrudes into their weekends. Different working time patterns are revealed. In the US, overnight work is more prevalent among scientists, while Chinese scientists mostly have busy weekends with their scientific research.