Coping with journal-price inflation: leading policy proposals and the quality-spectrum

This paper presents a simple model in which research universities stock their libraries with academic journals by picking a threshold level of quality below which no subscriptions are ordered. This framework is used to analyze two sets of initiatives aimed at dealing with journal-price inflation: (1) promoting low-cost modes of production and distribution, e.g., e-journals, and (2) changing tenure and promotion requirements in order to reduce the incentive for scholars to prioritize quantity over quality. Although these initiatives are, in the author's view, laudable in many respects, the model makes the point that the range of quality among journals that libraries subscribe to may shrink as a result. If there are gaps between contemporary standards of ``quality'''' in academic publishing, and what turns out to be useful to society in the long-run, then a ``scholarly communication'''' policy that is sensitive to pluralism with respect to journal-quality is recommended.

Perceived value of journals for academic prestige, general reading and classroom use: A study of journals in educational and instructional technology.

Conducting research, evaluating research, and publishing scholarly works all play an extremely prominent role for university faculty members. Tenure and promotion decisions are greatly influenced by the perceived value of publications as viewed by members of faculty evaluation committees. Faculty members seeking tenure may be limited to publishing in a limited group of journals perceived to be valuable by members of an academic committee. This study attempted to determine the value of various kinds of periodicals (journals, magazines, and e-journals), based on three principal criteria, as perceived by professionals (university faculty, K-12 practitioners, and corporate trainers) in the educational/instructional technology (E/IT) field. The criteria for journal evaluation were Academic Prestige, General Reading, and Classroom Use. The perceived value of journals based on each criterion was compared to determine any significant differences. Members of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) were asked to rate 30 journals in the E/IT field using the three criteria. Statistically significant differences were found among ratings in 63% of the journals. The statistical analyses indicated that differences in the perceived value of journals among E/IT professionals across the three criteria (Academic Prestige, General Reading, and Classroom Use) were statistically significant. It is also noted that refereed journals were rated higher than nonrefereed journals for the Academic Prestige criterion. Survey respondents indicated that individual journals were not valued for the same reasons. This finding implies that the formation of any equitable measure for determining the value of faculty members' journal article publications would be best if based on definable criteria determined by colleagues. Lists of valued journals for each area of faculty assessment would provide standards of excellence both inside and outside the E/IT field for those who serve on tenure and promotion committees in educational institutions

Open access and promotion and tenure evaluation plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

Department and program evaluation plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire were examined to see if these documents provide evidence that could be used to justify supporting the publication of peer-reviewed open access articles toward tenure and promotion. In an earlier study, the authors reveal that faculty members at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire are more unaware of open access publishing than their counterparts at larger universities. These findings dovetail with other studies that show that faculty members are reluctant to publish in open access journals because of concerns about the quality of those journals. The existing body of scholarship suggests that tenure-line faculty fear publishing in open access journals because it could adversely impact their chances of promotion and tenure. The authors of this current study sought to determine if department and program evaluation plans could influence negative perceptions faculty have of open access journals. The implications of this study for librarians, scholarly communication professionals, tenure-line faculty, departments, and programs are addressed

Scholarly Metrics Reports for Tenure and Promotion Candidates

Seton Hall University Libraries created a scholarly metrics outreach initiative in Summer 2021. Repository metrics are collected from our Institutional Repository (IR) to build reports for faculty applying for Rank and Tenure. This data includes IR statistics: downloads by country, institution, sector, and referrers. The IR also shows metadata hits over time. The addition of PlumX metrics to our IR allows us to view additional usage data including WorldCat statistics, social media across platforms and news mentions. It is possible that faculty may not know about social media or news coverage about their scholarship. Additionally, Google Scholar, Scopus and other data will be pulled into the report based on the faculty member’s discipline. This presentation will discuss a new workflow we created to support this service including: faculty outreach, training for library staff, interpretation of data for the University Rank and Tenure, and working with campus stakeholders such as the Office of Grants & Research to promote scholarly output. Opportunities and lessons learned will be collected this fall to report at the conference. Opportunities include faculty outreach ahead of tenure application deadlines, promotion and education about the importance of pre-prints in an IR to gather scholarship metrics, understanding metadata, and expansion of IR content to include syllabi collections, research projects and e-journals. This service may grow with other types of report requests. Repository metrics can are useful for book proposals or departmental accreditation reports. Lessons learned will highlight feedback from faculty, across many disciplines, library staff and faculty, and rank and tenure committee members

The Effects of the Quantification of Faculty Productivity: Perspectives from the Design Science Research Community

In recent years, efforts to assess faculty research productivity have focused more on the measurable quantification of academic outcomes. For benchmarking academic performance, researchers have developed different ranking and rating lists that define so-called high-quality research. While many scholars in IS consider lists such as the Senior Scholar’s basket (SSB) to provide good guidance, others who belong to less-mainstream groups in the IS discipline could perceive these lists as constraining. Thus, we analyzed the perceived impact of the SSB on information systems (IS) academics working in design science research (DSR) and, in particular, how it has affected their research behavior. We found the DSR community felt a strong normative influence from the SSB. We conducted a content analysis of the SSB and found evidence that some of its journals have come to accept DSR more. We note the emergence of papers in the SSB that outline the role of theory in DSR and describe DSR methodologies, which indicates that the DSR community has rallied to describe what to expect from a DSR manuscript to the broader IS community and to guide the DSR community on how to organize papers for publication in the SSB

Game of Tenure: the role of “hidden” citations on researchers’ ranking in Ecology

Field ecologists and macroecologists often compete for the same grants and academic positions, with the former producing primary data that the latter generally use for model parameterization. Primary data are usually cited only in the supplementary materials, thereby not counting formally as citations, creating a system where field ecologists are routinely under-acknowledged and possibly disadvantaged in the race for funding and positions. Here, we explored how the performance of authors producing novel ecological data would change if all the citations to their work would be accounted for by bibliometric indicators. We collected the track record of >2300 authors from Google Scholar and citation data from 600 papers published in 40 ecology journals, including field-based, conservation, general ecology, and macroecology studies. Then we parameterized a simulation that mimics the current publishing system for ecologists and assessed author rankings based on number of citations, H-Index, Impact Factor, and number of publications under a scenario where supplementary citations count. We found weak evidence for field ecologists being lower ranked than macroecologists or general ecologists, with publication rate being the main predictor of author performance. Current ranking dynamics were largely unaffected by supplementary citations as they are 10 times less than the number of main text citations. This is further exacerbated by the common practice of citing datasets assembled by previous research or data papers instead of the original articles. While accounting for supplementary citations does not appear to offer a solution, researcher performance evaluations should include criteria that better capture authors’ contribution of new, publicly available data. This could encourage field ecologists to collect and store new data in a systematic manner, thereby mitigating the data patchiness and bias in macroecology studies, and further accelerating the advancement of ecology and related areas of biogeography

Publish or perish? The increasing importance of publications for prospective economics professors in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

Tenure decisions depend, among other factors, on a candidate�s career age and publication record. We measure publications in units of both Top 5 journals and of the European Economic Review (EER), associating publication output with journals indexed in EconLit. We find that the average age of a professor in the year of his/her first appointment is 38, i.e. approximately 8 years after completing the PhD. Between 1970 and 2006, the average publication record at the time of the first appointment is equivalent to 1.5 standardized Top 5 articles (one co-author, 20 pages) or 2.3 standardized EER articles. Publication records vary across sub fields and improve over time. We predict that someone running for a tenured job after 2011 should (average of all fields) aim at an average equivalent of 4 standardized Top 5 articles or 6 standardized EER articles

Compelling Orthodoxy: Myth and Mystique in the Marketing of Legal Education

[Excerpt] “In many ways, the story of modern legal education reads like a grim fairy tale, whose moral dénouement is no less compelling, and perhaps more consequential, than its fabulist forbearers. In this regard the marketing of legal education may aptly be illustrated by fable, such as that of The Trees and the Bramble Bush, which concerns the folly of electing a king. When some beautiful trees decide to look for a leader, they offer the throne to the olive, the fig and the vine; each in turn refuses, preferring to keep to its own fruitful role. The bramble steps in and accepts, soon making threats of what will happen to those that do not accept him. The result is perhaps the law of unintended consequences at play, but it has implications for both the quality of legal education and the treasured concept of academic freedom. Certainly, the realm of scholarship has been invaded by the image-seekers and image-makers. Legal scholarship is unique in ways that are both interesting and problematic. It has become a phenomenon of epic proportions; the bulk of what we know of such writing emanates from the 190-plus law schools approved by the American Bar Association, which collectively produce more than 680 legal journals.

Gender Trends in Dental Leadership and Academics: A Twenty-Two-Year Observation

The purpose of this study was to examine gender disparities in dental leadership and academics in the United States. Nine journals that represent the dental specialties and high published impact factors were selected to analyze the percentage of female dentists’ first and senior authorship for the years 1986, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2008. Data on appointment status and female deanship were collected from the American Dental Association (ADA) survey, and the trends were studied. The proportion of female presidents in ADA-recognized specialty organizations was also calculated. Overall, the increase in first female authorship was not statistically significant, but the increase of last female authorship was statistically significant in a linear trend over the years. The percentage of tenured female faculty members and female deans in U.S. dental schools increased by factors of 1.7 and 9, respectively, during the study period. However, female involvement in professional organizations was limited. Findings from this study indicate that female participation in authorship and leadership has increased over time. Nevertheless, females are still a minority in dental academics and leadership

Examining the Personal and Institutional Determinants of Research Productivity in Hospitality and Tourism Management

The transition toward a post-capitalist knowledge-oriented economy has resulted in an increasingly competitive academic environment, where the success of faculty is dependent on their research productivity. This study examines the personal and institutional determinants of the quantity and quality of the research productivity of hospitality and tourism management faculty in US institutions. A survey of 98 faculty found that a different set of determinants impact the quantity and quality aspects of research productivity. Also, institutional determinants were found to play a larger role, indicating the need for administrators to strive for a culture that is supportive of and an infrastructure that is conducive to their faculty’s research success. The authors use the field of hospitality and tourism management as a case study to develop a holistic and cohesive framework for knowledge worker productivity that can guide the evaluation, hiring, and development of researchers