Over-time measurement of triadic closure in coauthorship networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how triadic closure in coauthorship networks evolves over time, revealing lower closure rates than previously thought and introducing a new metric for measurement.

Contribution

It introduces a novel metric for measuring triadic closure over time and compares it with existing measures, providing more accurate closure rate estimates.

Findings

Closure rates are between 1-3% and 4-7% based on empirical data.

Existing measures may overestimate closure rates.

New metric offers a more precise understanding of tie formation.

Abstract

Applying the concept of triadic closure to coauthorship networks means that scholars are likely to publish a joint paper if they have previously coauthored with the same people. Prior research has identified moderate to high (20% to 40%) closure rates; suggesting that this mechanism is a reasonable explanation for tie formation between future coauthors. We show how calculating triadic closure based on prior operationalizations of closure, namely Newman's measure for one-mode networks (NCC) and Opsahl's measure for two-mode networks (OCC), may lead to higher amounts of closure as compared to measuring closure over time via a metric that we introduce and test in this paper. Based on empirical experiments using four large-scale, longitudinal datasets, we find a lower bound of about 1~3% closure rates and an upper bound of about 4~7%. These results motivate research on new explanatory factors for the formation of coauthorship links.