Qualitative evaluation of social capital in higher education with "co-authorship" strategy

The development of the university depends on the development of the relationships of faculty members and their scientific collaborations. The present study seeks to examine faculty members' experiences of co-authorship as a visible aspect of scholarly collaboration. Qualitative and interpretive phenomenological approach was applied in the study. in collecting data, purposeful sampling was used and data saturation was taken into account. 12 faculty members participated in the study and data were collected using semi-structured interviews and then implemented and analyzed using Smith & Osborne (2004) method and  MAXQDA 2020 software. The results of the study showed that faculty members interpreted their co-authorship experience as a scientific community. They defined the scientific community in two dimensions of inside-organization and for organization. The inside-organization dimensions were reflected in sub-themes consisting synergistic and the social trust and dimensions of for organization were reflected in sub-themes of comprehensive growth of university and developing scientific discourse. Their experiences have shown that these  co-authorships  have raised the level of social capital in the university and at the same time the level of these co-authorships  has been influenced by the university performance and feedback. The present study recommends that, in order to promote co-authorship, developing collaboration contexts at university and the university's attention to qualitative criteria in research should be considered.