Faculty Research Productivity Research Articles

Perceptions of Annual Research Evaluations as Preparation for Future and Early Career Faculty

Thousands of university faculty complete annual evaluations to determine their yearly productivity. These assessments often determine the ability of a faculty member to continue in their current position (Zahneis, 2024). Evaluations play a crucial role in shaping the careers of early career tenure track professors. Given the importance of annual reviews, this poster presents the preliminary results of a study designed to examine how departments assess faculty research productivity and to understand their perceptions of the processes used to evaluate them. Providing these results to doctoral students and new faculty can help prepare them for the annual review process. Concerns emerged among the participants regarding the evaluation process. For instance, some participants noted that the quantity of publications was valued more than the quality, and there were no clear research quality standards. Another stated that some colleagues do little research and still receive positive evaluations. Faculty members were more satisfied with reviews when policies clearly outlined expectations. They liked it when alternative publication methods were valued. Participants believed research with students should be equally important to solo or collaborative projects with other faculty. Additionally, the participants appreciated it when their deans and chairs understood and celebrated their research. Participants shared factors that affect their research productivity. Time to complete research was a frequent response. Answers further indicated that support from research and teaching assistants saved them time. Funding to complete studies and research space was instrumental in their success.

Exploring the Lived Experiences of Members of a Faculty Research Hub Design Team in a College of Education at an HSI

ABSTRACT Researchers used a transcendental phenomenological approach to explore the experiences of faculty members in a Faculty Research Hub design team at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Through data analysis, several themes emerged: (1) Support and leadership, (2) Commitment to improvement, (3) Individual motivation, (4) Structure and collaborative nature of the team, (5) Small team size with diverse expertise, and (6) Faculty learning and development. These themes align with the input, process, or outcome stages of Binkhorst et al.’s (2015) integrative descriptive framework for Teacher Design Teams (TDTs). The study suggests that Hispanic-Serving Institutions aspiring to become R1 institutions should consider implementing and evaluating Faculty Design Teams (FDTs) to enhance faculty research productivity and doctoral student success.

Mining of Data in Real Time to build an Interactive Research Analytics Dashboard

The paper discusses the process of building a web-based interactive platform to assess the research productivity of the individual faculty of an institution. The application harvests the bibliographic data of researchers’ publications from the Scopus database and visualises it in real-time. The open-source environment R with different packages like the shiny, shiny dashboard for building web apps and dashboard designing; httr for data harvesting through API, jsonlite for parsing JSON data, tm for text mining, wordcloud for visualising wordcloud, textstem for lemmatization of text strings, dplyr for data manipulation, etc. were used. The data was harvested at the backend using Scopus API. The user interface of the application’s front end is the default design of the shiny dashboard, with some limited customization using CSS. The system tracks and visualizes the research productivity of the faculty. The application provides the total number of publications, citations, H Index, open access information, number of publications in open access, and closed access, in an assessment year rather than a calendar year, source-wise differentiation of publications, annual distribution of publications, common themes of the research, etc.

Research Productivity of Institutes in Hospitality and Tourism: Integrating Metrics of Total and per Capita Contribution

ABSTRACT Despite the existence of many published articles that examined research productivity in hospitality and tourism, prior studies on research productivity per capita in institutes are rare, if ever any. The novel contribution of this research lies in the utilization of a new method to measure research productivity by analyzing the total and per capita research productivity of the top 50 most productive institutes in hospitality and tourism. The findings showed that the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Sun Yat-Sen University ranked in the top two positions in total research productivity in 2022 and 2023. However, regarding faculty research productivity per capita, the University of Queensland and Washington State University claimed the first and second spots in 2022, respectively. Xiamen University and the University of Macau emerged as leaders in 2023. These divergent results depict the multi-facets of an institute’s research productivity, urging researchers to comprehend the research productivity of institutes from various aspects.

Faculty research productivity at select higher education institutions in Afghanistan

Faculty research productivity at select higher education institutions in Afghanistan

Empowering Underrepresented Researchers Through Effective Writing Support

Background: Effective writing support is crucial for enhancing research competitiveness, particularly at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where faculty face significant challenges such as high teaching loads and limited research resources. These barriers often hinder research productivity, particularly in biomedical and STEM fields, which are critical for addressing health disparities. To address these challenges, Morgan State University, a midsize HBCU, implemented a series of grant-writing workshops (GWWs) and Scientific Writing Accountability Groups (SWAGs) to enhance faculty research capabilities. Aims: The goal of this study was to assess their effectiveness in terms of increasing writing confidence among participants and increasing grant submission rates and research productivity among early-career and tenure-stream faculty. The workshops were particularly focused on helping faculty develop competitive NIH-style research proposals. Methods: The GWWs and SWAGs provided structured, hands-on coaching for proposal and manuscript writing. The GWWs focused on teaching key grant-writing skills, such as formulating research questions, designing studies, and writing proposals. Meanwhile, the SWAGs supported ongoing writing accountability, encouraging participants to develop consistent writing habits and providing peer feedback. Participants’ progress was assessed through pre- and post-workshop surveys that measured confidence in writing tasks, as well as tracking grant submissions and funding outcomes. Results: Since 2019, five series of GWWs and four SWAG sessions have been held, leading to significant gains in self-efficacy and productivity. Participants in the GWWs reported improved confidence in tasks such as formulating research questions, conducting literature reviews, and writing proposals. Those involved in accountability groups reported improved writing habits and progress on manuscripts, grants, and other academic projects. Overall, these programs contributed to a 78% grant submission rate among attendees, compared to 55% for non-attendees. A total of 174 proposals were submitted, resulting in over $84 million in funding. Conclusion: The workshops and accountability groups were highly effective in enhancing faculty research productivity and grant success. These initiatives demonstrate the value of providing structured writing support at under-resourced institutions, particularly HBCUs, to build a more competitive and diverse research workforce. The success of these programs highlights the potential for similar models to be implemented at other minority-serving institutions to address health disparities and foster academic excellence.

Examining Underrepresented Minority STEM Faculty Members’ Motivation for Research

Underrepresented minority (URM) university faculty can be identified as those whose representation based on gender, race, and/or ethnicity in particular fields, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), are smaller than in the US population. Studies on URM faculty have found discrimination and affiliated stress impact faculty in many aspects of their work, such as performance in research. In the current study, we examined STEM faculty who self-identify as URM, their experiences of workplace discrimination, and how these encounters affect their self-determined motivation to conduct research. Six-hundred and fifty-one faculty from 10 US institutions completed an online survey. Of the participants, 37.5% self-identified as URM, of which 81% were women, 20% non-white, and 6% Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity; notably, the data shows that 24% of women and 56% of non-white faculty did not self-identify as URM. More than 87% of URM reported workplace bias, which correlated with significantly lower autonomy and relatedness with coworkers. URM women reported gender discrimination at work was common and upsetting, which related to greater amotivation. Non-white and Hispanic/Latinx/Spanish URM who reported high success in research also cited more discrimination. URM faculty motivation was fostered by autonomy and competence, and much more by relatedness compared to non-URM faculty. For non-URM, autonomous motivation (enjoyment, value) positively related to research success, whereas for URM faculty a lack of introjected motivation (guilt) was the strongest predictor. Discussion focuses on implications for future studies of faculty motivation and strategies to promote URM faculty research productivity.

Research Publication Rates Are Age- and Era-Dependent for Radiation Oncologists From Highly Ranked NCI-Designated Cancer Centers

Quantitative bibliometrics are increasingly used to evaluate faculty research productivity. This study benchmarks publication rates for radiation oncologists from highly ranked National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers and reveals how productivity changes over the arc of a career and of the field over time. Peer-reviewed articles from 1970 to 2022 were obtained using Scopus for the 348 radiation oncologists listed as faculty for the top 10 cancer hospitals ranked by US News and World Report in 2022. Bibliometrics were analyzed for authorships (A˙), authorships where the individual was first or last author (F˙L), the monograph equivalent of authorships (M˙E), h-index, and ha-index (an analog to h-index using M˙E in place of publications). Career start was defined as the year of first publication. Bibliometric inflation was explored by analyzing authorship and bibliometric changes between 1990 and 2022. Publication rates peak, with as much as a 500% increase, 20 to 25 years from the start of a career before declining until retirement. At career ages of 1, 10, 20, and 30 years, the median bibliometrics were A˙=(1.5, 4.1, 6.5, 7.0) year-1, F˙L=(0.5, 0.9, 1.2, 0.6) year-1, M˙E= (0.2, 0.5, 0.7, 0.8) year-1, h-index=(1, 12, 22, 47), and ha-index=(0.4, 4.4, 6.9, 18.4). With regards to authorship patterns across eras, the median number of authors listed per paper increased by 240% between 1990 and 2022. Meanwhile, research productivity per individual as measured by F˙L and M˙E was unchanged. The research publication rates of the median radiation oncologist change substantially over the course of their career. Productivity improves steadily for more than 2 decades before peaking and declining. The culture of authorship has also changed between 1990 and 2022. The number of authors listed per paper has trended upwards, which has an inflationary effect on the number of authorships and h-index. Meanwhile, the rate of manuscripts published per faculty has not changed.

Comparing Apples With Apples: Women Faculty Research Productivity in Vietnamese Higher Education

For decades, abundant studies have illustrated the vast scholarly publication disparity between male and women academics. Exhaustingly, in 21st-century higher education, women’s academic research participation is below the world average, except in a few countries that comprehensively studied their faculties and personal and institutional agencies to restore parity. Higher education is widely discussed in Vietnam as incompetent academics with a shred of scholarly publications and venerable gender disparities. Hence, the current study sought to contribute robust policy and practical implications for stakeholders by inspecting women’s faculties solely to shed light on the root hindrances of their scholarly share. Remarkably, the findings of the study demonstrate that women faculty members have promising scholarly contributions in disciplines where women scientists are marginalized, that having children becomes a notable motivator for mothers in academia, and that there is genuine support from a husband who understands the worth of his wife’s research contribution to the institution and family.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Physician-Scientist Trainees and Faculty in the United States: A National Survey.

Physician-scientists have long been considered an endangered species, and their extended training pathway is vulnerable to disruptions. This study investigated the effects of COVID-19-related challenges on the personal lives, career activities, stress levels, and research productivity of physician-scientist trainees and faculty. The authors surveyed medical students (MS), graduate students (GS), residents/fellows (R/F), and faculty (F) using a tool distributed to 120 U.S. institutions with MD-PhD programs in April-June 2020. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to compare differences between groups. Machine learning was employed to select variables for multivariate logistic regression analyses aimed at identifying factors associated with stress and impaired productivity. The analyses included 1,929 respondents (MS: n = 679, 35%; GS: n = 676, 35%; R/F: n = 274, 14%; F: n = 300, 16%). All cohorts reported high levels of social isolation, stress from effects of the pandemic, and negative impacts on productivity. R/F and F respondents were more likely than MS and GS respondents to report financial difficulties due to COVID-19. R/F and F respondents with a dual degree expressed more impaired productivity compared with those without a dual degree. Multivariate regression analyses identified impacted research/scholarly activities, financial difficulties, and social isolation as predictors of stress and impaired productivity for both MS and GS cohorts. For both R/F and F cohorts, impacted personal life and research productivity were associated with stress, while dual-degree status, impacted research/scholarly activities, and impacted personal life were predictors of impaired productivity. More female than male respondents reported increased demands at home. This national survey of physician-scientist trainees and faculty found a high incidence of stress and impaired productivity related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the challenges faced and their consequences may improve efforts to support the physician-scientist workforce in the postpandemic period.

Socio-Demographic Determinants of Faculty Research Productivity in a Level-III Philippine State College

This paper explores the extent of research productivity and its socio-demographic determinants among faculty members in a level-III state college in the Philippines. The results aim to influence the decision-making on identifying appropriate interventions to further enhance research productivity and encourage faculty members to engage in research undertakings. The results suggest that socio-demographic characteristics of faculty members such as age, administrative designation, and supervision of graduate research determine their likelihood of publishing a research paper.

A Comparison of Demographic and Research Characteristics of Faculty in a Philippine Private University: Assessing Self-Efficacy, Attitude, and Interest

As the country shifts toward institutionalizing research-related activities for both basic and higher education, research productivity (RP) still exhibited low ratings, with most of the universities still developing their own research cultures. To keep up with this shift, the current paper aimed to provide an assessment of the current research characteristics (i.e., research self-efficacy, research attitudes, and research interests) of faculty members in a private university in Bacoor, Cavite. Focusing on a relatively small scale of faculty members (n= 49), the investigation tried to compare the faculty’s demographic profile and research characteristics to further understand the overall university faculty research productivity. The findings revealed that they have an above-average confidence level with their research skills, have a somewhat positive view of research, and are likely to be interested in doing research. The study found no significant differences among the participants' research characteristics when grouped according to their gender and educational attainment using Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests. However, there is a significant difference in the research attitudes among different age groups. Results have provided an objective assessment of the current research characteristics of university faculty members that may inform potential research training programs.

Research and academic output evaluation for career initiation or progression: Critical issues for Health Professionals

In current times, much stress is being laid on the evaluation of research productivity of researchers or faculty in addition to the academic qualifications and experience for the purposes of recruitment, promotion, and research grant funding. Over the years, several quantitative indices have been devised for this purpose. Some of these indices such as h-index, impact factor and e-index are being extensively used by research organizations, universities, accreditation bodies and funding agencies for basic scientists as well as health professionals. In the absence of any formal training, these parameters or their advantages and shortcomings may not be well understood by the health professionals, especially in the early stages of their careers and sometimes, even by the evaluators. A big unanswered question is the validity of the same criteria for health professionals as are applicable for the basic science researchers. Since health professional undertaking research assignments are neither adequately trained in basic research nor can they comprehend these indices well, the same yardstick to evaluate these two widely different groups of researchers often places the health professionals at a disadvantage. This paper aims to highlight certain vital issues related to the application of research productivity indicators for recruitment and career progression of health care professionals.

Leadership Roles, Academic Appointments, and Scholarly Activity-Does a Fellowship after Plastic Surgery Training Make a Difference?

Background Fellowship training is becoming more popular in plastic surgery, with over half of residents pursuing advanced training. Here, we investigate how clinical and research fellowship training impacts career trajectory and scholastic achievement in academic plastic surgery. Methods Plastic surgery faculty members, from programs recognized by the American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons, were identified using institutional Web sites. Data extracted included faculty demographics, training history, academic positions, and research productivity. Continuous and categorical variables were compared using t -tests and chi-square, respectively. Results In total, 949 faculty members were included, with 657 (69%) having completed fellowship training. Integrated program residents were more likely to complete a fellowship when compared with independent residents ( p < 0.0001). Fellowship trained faculty were more likely to have graduated from a higher ranked residency program, in terms of both overall and research reputation ( p = 0.005 and p = 0.016, respectively). When controlling for years in practice, there was no difference found in number of publications, Hirsch index (h-index), or National Institutes of Health funding between faculty between the two cohorts ( p > 0.05). In a subanalysis comparing hand, craniofacial, microsurgery, and research fellowships, those who completed a research fellowship had higher h-indices and were more likely to reach full professor status ( p < 0.001 and p = 0.001, respectively). Fellowship training had no effect on being promoted to Chief/Chair of departments ( p = 0.16). Conclusion Fellowship training is common among academic plastic surgeons. In this study, both clinical and research fellowships were associated with various aspects of academic success. However, fellowship training alone did not affect attainment of leadership positions.

Data Analysis of Bulacan State University Faculty Scientific Publication Based on Google Scholar using Web Data Scraping Technique

Purpose – The paper aims to analyze and monitor the research publication productivity of the faculty members of Bulacan State University. This paper compiles all the scientific publications from Bulacan State University (BulSU) and its external campuses as an index in Google Scholar. This study was intended to track and monitor the scientific productivity of the faculty members of Bulacan State University and each college and campus. Method – With the use of web data scraping techniques, metadata files were gathered from various faculty research engagement in Google Scholar Database. Web scraping is the process of extracting useful information from web pages (HTML pages) and saving it in a format that you specify, such as Excel (.xls), CSV (comma-separated values), or any other structured format using PurseHub. Different stages of data extraction are completed before descriptive insight is provided to the university. The researchers used the web data scraping techniques to extract the necessary data in the web through the Google Scholar database to specifically gather the research outputs of the faculty members of Bulacan State University. Results – Results have shown that a significant increase that happened throughout the covered years on the number of publications was made possible by the scholarships and study breaks that the faculty members were able to get and a significant increase in the number of citations was brought by the benefits of collaborating with other researchers from other HEIs. Conclusion – Bulacan State University has seen both big improvements and stagnation with the growth of the number of publications being produced by the faculty members. Based on the results of the study, the publications of BulSU have experienced a significant increase due to the impact of scholarship and the benefits that comes with it to the productivity of the faculty members. On the other hand, the factor that affected the significant increase in citations is the collaborators with researchers from other academic institutions. Recommendation – The administration should consider doing necessary steps to encourage the faculty members who engage in research activities to create Google Scholar accounts for easy monitoring of publications and citations. This would allow the easier navigation of the research studies produced by the faculty members which will help the university monitor the progress of research activity effectively and for an impressive research activity, the researchers also recommend that the administration should also provide competitive incentives and positive reinforcements. The faculty, on the other hand, are recommended to broaden their horizon and engage in collaborations with other researchers from other academic institutions for wider perspective of things. Practical Implication – Maximizing the use of data scraping in gathering information about research activity from vast networks will make the navigation and organization of research activity easier. With this, monitoring the progress of faculty research productivity will also be done in ease.

Open Access Electronic Resources Use and Research Productivity of Faculty Members: A Case Study of a Selected University in Ghana

Research is one of the key pillars in the teaching and learning situation in any university in the world. However, the approach to research varies from one university to the other. The purpose of this study was to find out how the level of awareness and satisfaction, the challenges and extent of use of open access resources impact research productivity of faculty in *Dartum University. A quantitative survey research method was adopted. A sample size of 62 full-time lecturers and 134 part-time lecturers was selected for the study using a stratified simple random sampling technique. The findings revealed that research productivity is low despite the high level of awareness and satisfaction with open access use. Again, the findings showed that faculty members use open access to a considerable extent and point out some challenges associated with open access use. It was concluded that there is a very weak but significant influence of open access use on research productivity in Dartum University. It is recommended that African universities, and in particular Dartum University, establish or patronise institutional repositories which support open access.

Managing individual research productivity in academic organizations: A review of the evidence and a path forward

The management of research productivity is central to university governance and drives a broad range of decisions, including those on hiring, promotion and funding allocation. Policymakers and academic leaders responsible for improving their institutions’ research performance need an evidence-based understanding of the organizational factors that can be managed in pursuit of better publication outcomes. Our paper reviews the empirical evidence on the drivers of research productivity that can be actively managed by organizations and policymakers. Such drivers include organizational structures, research culture, features of task environment for academic work, and resource allocation. To advance the state of science in research productivity literature, we then analyze assumptions and highlight mechanisms that need to be explored in order to improve theoretical and methodological state of the field. We suggest directions for future research with the aim to create a deeper and more cohesive body of knowledge on how organizations, funding bodies, and government agencies can influence scientific performance at the individual level. To advance the practice of research management, we offer a rigorous synthesis of existing empirical evidence that can help academic leaders in supporting and developing faculty research productivity within their institutions.

Building a biomedical pipeline: the impact of the Idaho IDeA INBRE summer research experience at a primarily undergraduate institution.

Idaho Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) aims to build biomedical research capacity and enhance the scientific and technology knowledge of the Idaho workforce. A key INBRE Program at The College of Idaho, a primarily undergraduate institution of 1,100 students, is a 10-wk summer fellows research experience. This report documents outcomes from 2005 to present, including demographic trends, faculty and student research productivity, self-reported gains, educational attainment, and career outcomes. Of 103 participants, 83.7% were from Idaho, 26.7% from rural areas, and 23.9% first-generation college students. Faculty and student research productivity (conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications) increased threefold. We found that 91.4% of fellows entered a scientific- or healthcare-related career and that 70.7% completed or are currently enrolled in postgraduate training (51.7% doctoral and 19.0% master's level). Anonymous surveys were uniformly positive, with gains in self-confidence and independent laboratory work. Open-ended responses indicated students valued mentoring efforts and improved awareness of scientific opportunities and competitive preparation for postgraduate training. Lastly, we observed that student research involvement increased college-wide during the award period. These data suggest that the summer fellows program is successfully meeting National Institutes of Health IDeA goals and serving as a pipeline to future health research careers and a scientifically trained Idaho workforce.

Perceptions of Academic Departmental Climate by Men and Women and the Effects of Such Perceptions on Research Productivity

ABSTRACTWe demonstrate how men and women political scientists in PhD-granting departments perceive the professional climates there. We find remarkable differences in how men and women perceive the “cultural” climates of their departments, such as the degree to which it is sexist, but not in how they perceive strictly collegial aspects of climate. We also demonstrate that these patterns characterize the perceptions of men and women at both junior and senior ranks. Contrary to some past research, we also find that climate perceptions do not have a general effect on faculty research productivity. Further, perceptions of high departmental sexism by women scholars does not degrade their research productivity.

Subspecialty Selection Impacts Research Productivity and Faculty Rank of Academic Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Faculty promotion and research productivity are important for the overall career trajectory of academic orthopaedic surgeons. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role that subspecialty and demographic factors play in research productivity and academic advancement among orthopaedic surgeons. We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of academic rank among orthopaedic surgeons in 2018. We identified academic orthopaedic programs in the United States from the Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database (FREIDA) and collected publicly available data for surgeons, including fellowship training, gender, faculty rank, geographic region, and years since residency, from institutional websites. Research productivity was defined with the Hirsch index (h-index) from Scopus, and the m-index was calculated from the surgeon's h-index and the date of the first publication. Multivariate regression analyses were performed to determine the variables that are associated with associate professorship, full professorship, and the h-index. In this study, we identified and included 2,879 academic orthopaedic surgeons. Completion of a fellowship in foot and ankle (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: 2.45 [1.17 to 5.15]), sports medicine (2.15 [1.12 to 4.15]), trauma (2.83 [1.42 to 5.66]), hand and upper extremity (2.20 [1.13 to 4.28]), musculoskeletal oncology (3.28 [1.49 to 7.21]), or upper-extremity reconstruction (3.20 [1.31 to 7.81]) was associated with associate professorship. Completion of a trauma fellowship was associated with full professorship (2.93 [1.27 to 6.77]). Completion of a fellowship in adult reconstruction (difference in least-squares means [95% confidence interval]: 5.01 [1.22 to 8.81]), sports medicine (4.52 [1.00 to 8.04]), spine (5.40 [1.63 to 9.18]), or upper-extremity reconstruction (10.64 [6.15 to 15.12]) or the completion of multiple fellowships (5.12 [1.27 to 8.94]) were independently associated with a higher h-index. Women had significantly lower h-indices than men at the assistant (median [interquartile range]: 3 [1 to 6] versus 4 [2 to 8]) and full professor (17 [12 to 26] versus 22 [13 to 34]) levels. There were no differences in the m-index between men and women at any academic rank. Orthopaedic subspecialty selection is independently associated with research productivity and academic rank. The differences in research productivity may be important to consider when evaluating orthopaedic surgeons for promotion. While female surgeons had lower h-indices than their male counterparts, this difference was not seen when using the m-index.