Publication Rates of Molecular Versus Non-Molecular Biologists: A Case Study of Seven Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

Abstract

At many primarily undergraduate institutions, biology faculty members mentor student research collaborators. If publication is required for tenure and promotion, this research is expected to result in periodic publications; and publication rates are a common metric used to assess faculty productivity. However, we have uncovered a highly significant difference in the time required to publish articles based on biological sub-discipline. It takes, on average, twice as long for molecular biologists to publish articles than scholars from other sub-disciplines in biology. We believe that this analysis can be used to assess whether this phenomenon generalizes to other disciplines and/or other categories of institutions.