Research Productivity, Recognition, Impact, and Life

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Research Productivity, Recognition, Impact, and
Life

• Stephanie Pfirman
• Barnard College
• Environmental Science Department

2
Consider Your Career Strategically

• A post doc at 28, hired at 30
• You could be in academia/ research perhaps at
  the same institution for 35 years
• Coming up for tenure in your 7th year, your
  postdoc and the first 6 years of your academic
  lifecycle are special
• Performance at this time sets the stage for the
  rest of your career

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Outline

• Performance assessment
• Research program
• Productivity
• Citations
• Visibility
• Relationships and Family
• Work habits

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Small Differences Can Add Up
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Assessing Performance

• Performance is associated with productivity,
  creativity, and achievement
• How to assess research performance?
• Reputation, recognition
• Yield, productivity
• Influence, impact

Avital, M. and Collopy, F. (2001), "Assessing
Research Performance Implications for Selection
and Motivation," Sprouts Working Papers on
Information Environments, Systems and
Organizations, Vol 1, Summer.
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Publications and Recognition are Critical to
Promotion

• At Tenure Review
• 12-20 excellent letters from influential people
• Intellectual achievement -- an important advance
• A home run that changed the way people think
• On a trajectory to be in the top 5 of your field
• Comparison list
• Critical mass of publications and citations
• Number depends on field and institution
• Grant support and other forms of external
  validation
• Invited presentations
• Evidence of leadership
• Effective teacher
• Contributing to the academic community
• Committee participation

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Factor Most Influential in CV Review
Steinpreis RE, Anders KA, Ritzke D. The impact of
gender on the review of the curricula vitae of
job applicants and tenure candidates A national
empirical study SEX ROLES 41 (7-8) 509-528 OCT
1999
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Letters of Recommendation

• An introductory section
• Relationship of recommender with the applicant
• A body describing academic traits and
  achievements
• Specificity of focus and record of the applicant
• Evidence of productivity in research,
  effectiveness in teaching, and collegiality in
  service
• Evaluation or comparison of traits and
  accomplishments of the applicant
• Particular research of the applicant
• Applicants abilities in research design
• Contribution of applicant to research environment
  of laboratory, department, greater community
• A closing section where the recommendation is
  made
• Longer letters are better
• Shows care on the part of the recommender
• The more detail, the more persuasive

Trix and Psenka, 2003. Exploring the color of
glass letters of recommendation for female and
male medical faculty. Discourse Society.
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Doubt Raisers in Letters
Trix and Psenka, 2003. Exploring the color of
glass letters of recommendation for female and
male medical faculty. Discourse Society.
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Also Gender Differences in Association of
Possessives
Trix and Psenka, 2003. Exploring the color of
glass letters of recommendation for female and
male medical faculty. Discourse Society.
11
Steinpreis RE, Anders KA, Ritzke D. The impact of
gender on the review of the curricula vitae of
job applicants and tenure candidates A national
empirical study SEX ROLES 41 (7-8) 509-528 OCT
1999
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Pre Tenure Research Strategy

• During your post doc move away from the research
  of your PhD mentor
• Become known for something and keep within that
  general area
• Dont distribute yourself and your research over
  many communities
• Pick projects that can result in several
  publications pre-tenure review
• Get grant support
• Contribute to the research of others so that they
  can carry you sometimes

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Collaboration

• Work with colleagues who hold up their end
• Nix the high-maintenance ones
• Get some people to work for you and with you
• You dont have to do everything yourself
• Plan for time at meetings to catch up with
  current, past and potential collaborators
• On their radar screen
• Base of your citation community

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Women Collaborate But Often Work Alone
Research Assessment Group in the United Kingdom
http//www.evaluation.co.uk/library/id/gender.htm
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Idealized Research Productivity
PhD Candidate
Post Doc
Asst Prof/Res
Assc Prof/Res
Full Prof/Res
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Women and InterdisciplinaryPromise and Peril
A study by the Research Assessment Group in the
United Kingdom found a striking gender difference
at the high end in the number of intersecting
research fields http//www.evaluation.co.uk/librar
y/id/gender.htm

• As students, women are more likely to major in
  Environmental Science/Studies
• As scholars, women are more likely to work on
  highly interdisciplinary research

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Characteristics for Disciplinary vs.
Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Science?

• Disciplinary
• Quantitative
• Tough
• Self-driven
• Independent
• Assertive
• Self-promoting, take credit for successes
• Careerist
• Risky science within the mainstream/consensus
  science
• Focused, task oriented
• Quick to publish, get ideas out
• Productive
• Competitive
• Command-and-control leadership (e.g. lab
  hierarchy)

• Collaborative, Interdisciplinary
• Relational, qualitative
• Friendly, nice
• Concerned about others and their welfare
• Helping
• Socially sensitive, listening
• Communal
• Less careerist
• Interdisciplinary science
• Multitasking
• Synthetic
• Not competitive
• Consensus oriented, democratic leadership

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Actually Characteristics of Men and Women
(Largely related to unconscious bias)
Virginia Valian

• Men (ca. 60 )
• Quantitative
• Tough
• Self-driven
• Independent
• Assertive
• Self-promoting, take credit for successes
• Careerist
• Risky science within the mainstream/consensus
  science
• Focused, task oriented
• Quick to publish, get ideas out
• Productive
• Competitive
• Command-and-control leadership (e.g. lab
  hierarchy)

• Women (ca. 60 )
• Relational, qualitative
• Friendly, nice
• Concerned about others and their welfare
• Helping
• Socially sensitive, listening
• Communal
• Less careerist
• Interdisciplinary science
• Multitasking
• Synthetic
• Not competitive
• Consensus oriented, democratic leadership

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(No Transcript)
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Interdisciplinarity and Academia
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COSEPUP Are there impediments to IDR at your
current institution?
Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, 2004,
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public
Policy (COSEPUP) Convocation
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Key Events Associated with Prolific Publishing
that Vary by Gender
Creamer, E.G., 1998, Assessing Faculty
Publication Productivity Issues of Equity,
ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Vol 26, No 2,
117 pp.
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Key Events Associated with Prolific Publishing
that Vary by Gender
Creamer, E.G., 1998, Assessing Faculty
Publication Productivity Issues of Equity,
ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Vol 26, No 2,
117 pp.
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Women and Publications

• As of 1993 women scientists published at about
  82 the rate of men
• The fact that more women are based in
  undergraduate institutions, accounts for ca. 10
  of the difference
• Family/children may account for 1-4 of the
  difference

Xie and Shaumann, 2003
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Teaching and Productivity

• Ca. 1 course/semester may actually facilitate
  research productivity
• Maximum productivity
• Up to 8 hours per week of teaching and
• Up to 4 hours per week of consulting
• (Average work week ca. 55-58 hrs)
• A researcher can expect to produce about 1
  additional paper every 2 years for each
  additional 6 hours of research per week
• 12 hrs research/week per paper?

Mitchell and Rebne (1995) The Nonlinear Effects
of Teaching and Consulting on Academic Research
Productivity Socio-Economic Planning Sciences,
29, 47-57
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Undergraduate Teaching/Service

• Teaching undergraduates is not positively
  correlated with productive publishing in science!
• Teach a couple of courses well dont
  continually design new ones
• Dont revise good courses
• Watch your numbers advisees and students
• Look for synergies -- undergraduates can advance
  your research
• Scope out a proposal via independent study
• Teach and assign papers in your research area
• Put most of your teaching in one semester?
• Pick one way to contribute to your community and
  do it well

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Does Having Children Negatively Affect Womens
Publishing Productivity?
Creamer, E.G., 1998, Assessing Faculty
Publication Productivity Issues of Equity,
ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Vol 26, No 2,
117 pp.
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Children 52 of women had no children at the
time of the survey compared with 21 of men
Mary Frank Fox (2005) Gender, Family
Characteristics, and Publication Productivity
among Scientists. Social Studies of Science 35/1,
131150
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Publications/Year (SP)
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Professional Social Capital (SP)
Resume Teaching
Nina
Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, Uzzi (2000) Athena Unbound
The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology
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Importance of Traveling to Meetings
Following 9/11 the woman stopped attending the
annual workshop
From ISI database
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Career Interruptions

• Loss of professional social capital, obsolescence
• Early publications important
• Accrue citations and recognition by time of
  tenure review
• Relative validity
• Career interruption while colleagues continue to
  publish, over time colleagues credited for
  original joint discovery
• Try not to allow an interruption to disrupt your
  pre-tenure research trajectory
• Proposals to get research funded in advance
• Post doc, doctoral students, and/or technician to
  provide research continuity
• Adjunct to provide relief from teaching
• Assistant to provide relief from administration

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What About the Denominator?Handling
Interruptions on Your CV
Education Ph.D. 1985 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Joint Program in Oceanography and Oceanographic
Engineering B.A. 1978 Colgate University Academic
/Research Appointments 1993-present Barnard
College/Columbia University Professor and
Chair, Barnard College Department of
Environmental Science affiliate Columbia
University Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences 1990-present Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory of Columbia University Adjunct
Associate Research Scientist 1986-1989 University
of Kiel and GEOMAR, Research Center for Marine
Geoscience, Kiel, Germany Research
Associate 1977-1979 US Geological Survey, Woods
Hole Branch of Marine Geology Oceanographer Non
Academic/Research Experience 1998-2001 Parental
leave work part time 1990-1993 Environmental
Defense Fund Senior Scientist and Scientific
Coordinator of the exhibition "Global Warming
Understanding the Forecast," developed jointly
with the American Museum of Natural
History 1984-1986 US House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Environment
Professional Staff
Institutions often do not have a formal way of
communicating the fact that youve been granted
a leave, so reviewers tend to simply divide
publications by years post PhD
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Publications One Short, One Long?

• Some long, authoritative publications are
  important demonstrates depth
• Women tend to try to make their publications
  bullet-proof, complete, synthetic
• Natural reaction to greater criticism than men
• Dont polish until perfect! -- delays publication
  and makes rejection/revisions harder to handle
• Some short ones are also important
• Gets the main idea out in a timely way
• Easy to get buy in from co-authors
• Easy to revise

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Handling Rejection/ Major Revisions/ Resubmittals

• Make your case
• Contact program managers and editors and explain
  your perspective
• Dont let them cut your budget without a fight
  (Bell)
• Look for positives in the reviews and build on
  them
• Resubmit proposals, or turn proposal into a paper
  (Bell)
• Priority to revise ms., or submit best parts to
  another journal
• Women often take rejection more personally

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Quality of work? Visibility? Integration into
scientific networks? (Ward et al. 1992)
Citations
M. Amin M. Mabe October 2000 Impact Factors
Use Abuse, Perspectives in Publishing, No. 1
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Accrual of Citations (SP)
Year of publication
From ISI database
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Gender Differences in Citations

• Citations of womens papers may peak later than
  mens
• Women at 6-7 years, men at 4-5 years (e.g. Ward
  et al. 1992)
• Implications for tenure clock
• Preference for same gender citations (e.g. Ferber
  1986, 1988)
• Blocking and overshadowing effects
• Eminent scholar on author list tends to gain
  attribution (Balsam)
• Women get less credit for co-authored work (e.g.
  Ward and Grant, 1996)
• Womens papers cited more frequently than
  mens? (e.g. Long, 1992)

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Long, 1992
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Women and Review Papers?
M. Amin M. Mabe October 2000 Impact Factors
Use Abuse, Perspectives in Publishing, No. 1
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But While Review Papers May Be Well Cited

• There is a fairly clear hierarchy of value
  associated with scientific work
• Theoretical
• Experimental
• Technological breakthroughs

Cole, J. 2000 A short history of the use of
citations as a measure of the impact of
scientific and scholarly work. The Web of
Knowledge.
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ISI Citation Index

• Always use the same format for your name
• Pfirman SL vs. Pfirman S (Pfirman S)
• Publish in journals indexed by ISI
• No books/conference proceedings, while peer
  reviewed many are not indexed
• Books result in confused citations
• Publish in journals with easy full text access
• Use key words in title that you want to be known
  for
• Increase accessibility/searchability of your work
• Emerge in top cited under this topic

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Name Consistency
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Books/Monographs
Pfirman S
out of 90!
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Key Words and Times Cited
95
84
71
61
58
SP 54 (1990)
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SP 43 (1989)
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Key Words and Times Cited
126
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SP 55-71 (1994)
46
39
36
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Key Words and Colleagues
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Who Cites You?

• Corrected for self citation
• Co-authors
• Continuity in community helps build your standing
• If someone cites your paper once, they probably
  will more than once
• Read their papers
• Connect at meetings, discuss your latest project
• Consult pre-pub, list them as a reviewer
• Consider co-authoring and co-proposing
• Referee list for promotion

Bold co-author
From ISI database
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Travel Professional Meetings and Recognition

• Present your research as often as possible go to
  meetings, accept invitations for talks, offer to
  give presentations
• People exposed to your ideas, you become known
• Vets your research
• Feedback gt honed ideas and presentation,
  confidence
• Alerted to potential competitors and any urgency
  in publication
• Accrue citations in first year
• Invited presentations gt external recognition
• Speak with leaders in your field, collaborators,
  peers
• Builds professional social capital, invited to
  participate in committees

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Preliminary Survey Results Travel
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Special Sessions/Workshops

• Time consuming to put together but
• Gives you visibility
• You are seen as an authority, a leader, people
  put the name to the face, and you might be asked
  to join a strategic committee
• Everyone loves to be invited, they might invite
  you next time
• NSF usually does not peer-review workshop
  proposals
• Talk with program manager
• Senior colleague to work with you? Makes for a
  stronger network
• Dont do all the work and let them get all the
  credit
• Travel difficult?
• Run or co-run a workshop or a meeting at your own
  institution (ADVANCE)

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Professional Meetings and Children

• Live in baby-sitter and leave the kids at home?
• Focus on science, meet colleagues for dinner,
  etc.
• Sitter at meeting/hotel or bring a sitter along
• Ask meeting organizers to arrange on-site
  childcare
• You may be able to get institutional support for
  on-site, or at-home, childcare e.g. Princeton

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Kids
Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to
Motherhood By LOUISE STORY Published NYT
September 20, 2005

• Can fit with academia/research
• Flexible hours
• Summers less intense
• Parenthood and work
• Conflict resolution
• Multitasking
• Patience, riding out issues
• Empathy join the human race
• Appreciate the perspectives of others
• Leadership, decision-making
• Experience with mistakes
• Learning and development intellectually
  stimulating
• Lack of time
• Tied down
• Distraction

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Kids Early

• Biology
• Energy
• Young empty-nesters
• Lack of money
• Careers not established
• Tension with coworkers without kids
• Cant jump on opportunities
• Cant travel as extensively
• Re-entry issues
• Loss of autopilot, network
• Obsolescence

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Kids Late

• Infertility
• Lack of energy
• Retiring empty-nesters
• Can take advantage of opportunities early in
  your career
• Money
• Childcare
• Adoption
• Established careers
• Patience and perspective

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Marriage62 of women scientists were married at
the time of the survey compared with 86 of men
Mary Frank Fox (2005)
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Relationships59 of women surveyed were married
to other scientists compared with 17 of men
Mary Frank Fox (2005)
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Alignment and Conservation of Energy

• Flow and creativity
• When are you most productive? Protect that time
• Work on what you want to publish
• And publish whatever you work on
• Make sure that everything you do counts
• And is counted, e.g. ISI indexed journals
• Publish more than once with the same authors on a
  related topic, not LPU
• The second one requires much lower overhead

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Being a Professional

• Pair problems with solutions
• Goals
• Figure out the real goals of your
  group/institution
• Orient your effort toward attaining them
• Think ahead, think big
• Back plan from product
• Develop judgment and analysis
• Practice I would make this decision, I would ask
  this question
• Taking notes? Add consensus, dissent, trends,
  prognosis, recommendations, next steps
• Results vs. effort
• No excuses results are rewarded, not effort
• Not I was up to 300 am working on this

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NSF - ADVANCE at the Columbia Earth Institute is
looking for ways to help