But what about the work places of the most productive scholars? Did they look into that as well? I’m curious to know if the most productive scholars were also distributed all over the universities.
From the paper: “While graduates of the more prestigious IS programs did produce more highly cited research, they did not produce a larger average number of publications.”
Well, this is actually exactly what we are trying to teach our own graduates (NYU is one of the “high prestige” IS departments in the study).
I actually consider this a good thing: “Write less but get more people to read what you write.”
In their study, the exception seemed to be researchers of middle academic origin that moved up the ladder. They were significantly more productive and had the highest mean citation counts. This is not surprising is it?
They published more articles in top journals than researchers from more prestigious schools who were also hired in the same positions.
In effect, based on this study alone, there is no justification for a hiring committee who favors graduates from lesser schools.
Producing fewer high impact research papers should be more important than turning out many mediocre papers (but that might not always be recognized at tenure time).
In this survey, they specifically picked “quality journals”. So they did not count “mediocre papers”.
Shane Culpeppersays:
I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from Long et al. One comment that stood out to me was: “While graduates of the more prestigious IS programs did produce more highly cited research, they did not produce a larger average number of publications.”
In their study, the exception seemed to be researchers of middle academic origin that moved up the ladder. They were significantly more productive and had the highest mean citation counts. This is not surprising is it?
Producing fewer high impact research papers should be more important than turning out many mediocre papers (but that might not always be recognized at tenure time). Measuring impact is a different problem entirely, but simply counting publications and averaging citation counts across them does not seem to be sufficient.
Shane Culpeppersays:
In this survey, they specifically picked “quality journalsâ€. So they did not count “mediocre papersâ€.
Point taken. However, much like the distribution of good researchers, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between good papers and good journals!
But what about the work places of the most productive scholars? Did they look into that as well? I’m curious to know if the most productive scholars were also distributed all over the universities.
Please see my earlier blog post: Big schools are no longer giving researchers an edge?
From the paper: “While graduates of the more prestigious IS programs did produce more highly cited research, they did not produce a larger average number of publications.”
Well, this is actually exactly what we are trying to teach our own graduates (NYU is one of the “high prestige” IS departments in the study).
I actually consider this a good thing: “Write less but get more people to read what you write.”
@Panos Right. I agree. But the purpose of my blog post (and others) is to stress that we should always be watchful of our assumptions.
@Shane
In their study, the exception seemed to be researchers of middle academic origin that moved up the ladder. They were significantly more productive and had the highest mean citation counts. This is not surprising is it?
They published more articles in top journals than researchers from more prestigious schools who were also hired in the same positions.
In effect, based on this study alone, there is no justification for a hiring committee who favors graduates from lesser schools.
Producing fewer high impact research papers should be more important than turning out many mediocre papers (but that might not always be recognized at tenure time).
In this survey, they specifically picked “quality journals”. So they did not count “mediocre papers”.
I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from Long et al. One comment that stood out to me was: “While graduates of the more prestigious IS programs did produce more highly cited research, they did not produce a larger average number of publications.”
In their study, the exception seemed to be researchers of middle academic origin that moved up the ladder. They were significantly more productive and had the highest mean citation counts. This is not surprising is it?
Producing fewer high impact research papers should be more important than turning out many mediocre papers (but that might not always be recognized at tenure time). Measuring impact is a different problem entirely, but simply counting publications and averaging citation counts across them does not seem to be sufficient.
In this survey, they specifically picked “quality journalsâ€. So they did not count “mediocre papersâ€.
Point taken. However, much like the distribution of good researchers, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between good papers and good journals!