Citation Statistics as a Measure of Faculty Research Productivity

Abstract

This paper discusses criteria for evaluation of faculty in general as they apply specifically to faculty of schools of library and information science. The criteria considered are those identified in The CALL, the procedures used in faculty personnel actions at University of California, Los Angeles. Among those criteria, that relating to research and creative work requires special attention. To provide a benchmark for evaluation, the paper analyzes citation statistics for a total of 4 1 1 tenured level faculty (i.e., professor and associate professor ranks) at 60 schools of library and information science with M.L.S. degree programs accredited by the American Library Association. It identifies 40 faculty (about 10%) with the highest frequency of citation. It provides analyses of the distributions by several subject specialties and for various time periods. It calculates several measures for the ranking of schools in terms of frequency of publication and citation of faculty. It analyzes the relations to Ph.D. degree programs. It compares the resulting rankings with the several subjective rankings of schools, based on surveys of individuals. In making the comparison, it was hypothesized that the top as identified by and (1974)1 would overlap other schools, but that there would be distinct subgroups that did not overlap (those in the group of the Blau and Margulies ten and those in the other schools that are significantly below the range of overlap). Such turned out to be the case. The faculty were those identified in the Journal of Education for Librarianship, Directory Issue, as appointed to their respective schools during academic year 1979-80. The data are derived from the citation indexes and source indexes as reported in Social Science Citation Index over the 15-year period 1965-80.