Analysis of the dynamics of the publication activity of the university in terms of employee categories

Abstract

Introduction. In recent years, the goal of the state policy in the field of science and higher education was to make the universities occupy competing positions in international assessment systems, including scientific potential. Therefore, the universities need constructive solutions able to ensure the growth of the corresponding indicators. The purpose of the research is to analyze the dynamics of the publication activity of the university staff. Materials and methods. Data on the number of publications of university employees in the world's leading scientometric databases Web of Science and Scopus for the period from 2000-2020 served as the research materials. The study used classification, descriptive statistics and comparative data analysis. Research results. The categories of the teaching staff were determined, which to a greater extent affect the publication activity of the institution as a whole. As a result of a comparative analysis, all employees were divided into four categories according to the type of work (full-time teaching staff, external part-time workers, internal part-time workers and non-teaching staff), as well as into 6 groups depending on the number of publications ("0", "1-2", "3-4","5-6","7-8", "> 9"). The probabilities were calculated and matrices of statistical estimates of the transitions of employees of various categories from one group to another for each status were formed (the employees who continue to work at the university, newly hired or dismissed during the year). It was revealed that the drivers of scientific activity are the full-time teaching staff, except for those included in the group "0". Discussion and conclusion. The obtained matrices of transition probabilities will form the basis for modeling the number of employees in various groups and predicting the total number of publications of an institution. As a result, it will be possible not only to predict the total number of articles of the university while maintaining current trends, but also to consider various management scenarios in order to improve efficiency and meet the goals of the institution. This will help universities not only conduct self-analysis, but also manage the performance indicators of the institutions and departments, in terms of the growth of publication activity results.