Scholarly Activity

1
Scholarly Activity

• 2004 IIE New Faculty Colloquium
• Joseph C. Hartman
• Associate Professor
• Soteria and George N. Kledaras Chair
• Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Lehigh University

2
The Goal Scholar

• Define your field and become an EXPERT
• A scholar is a learned person
• Become a name in your field
• Tenure should not be your goal!
• It should be a mere formality along the way
• Shoot beyond tenure

3
How to Get There
Publications
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How to Get There
Publications
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Publications

• Journal Publications
• These are the primary source of scholarly
  research
• Know your top journals
• 1.5 top journal publications a year is generally
  a good pace
• Special issues generally get fast-tracked
• Conference Proceedings
• Chapters in manuscripts/encyclopedias

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Journal Rankings

• Operations Research 1.02
• Management Science 1.09
• Math of OR 1.45
• Math Programming 1.68
• Jrnl. of Am. Stat. Assoc. 1.68
• MSOM 1.85
• Naval Research Log. 2.44
• SIAM Review 2.47
• IIE Transactions 2.5
• Transportation Science 2.52
• Interfaces 2.58
• INFORMS Jrnl. on Computing 2.71
• OR Letters 2.72

• Networks 2.83
• Annals of OR 2.89
• European JOR 3.0
• Prod. and Ops. Mgmt 3.2
• Jrnl. of Ops. Mgmt 3.22
• Jrn. of ORS 3.25
• Decision Sciences 3.54
• Computers and OR 4.07
• Math and Comp Mod. 4.09
• IJPR 4.17
• IJPE 4.31
• Computers and IE 4.49
• Omega 4.5

From Olson, J. Top Journals in OM and OR,
Univ. of Pitt, August 2000.
7
What Makes a Paper Good?

• Prove general results
• Provide better method than before (faster, more
  accurate, etc.)
• Solve problems not previously solvable
• Provide insight that may not follow intuition
• Present new problem/test set for others
• Well written (can be replicated)

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Components of a Good Paper

• Introduction
• Describe problem, background and results
• Convince reader this is important
• Model and Solution Procedure
• Notation, model and approach
• Insights
• May be theoretical, rules or computation
• Conclusion
• Restate what you did and look to future

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Publications

• Do not be intimidated most articles out there
  are not very good
• Be prepared to take criticism
• Be prepared to revamp your writing
• Aim high better to publish more slowly in better
  journals that have quick acceptances at lesser
  journals
• Expect long review cycles and no acceptances on
  first try

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Referee Comments...

• Therefore, I must conclude that this paper, as
  written, makes little contribution to the
  literature.
• Frankly, the only part of this paper that is of
  interest to me is the example.
• Although this work is competent, it is not in my
  mind publishable.
• The contribution is not novel and of sufficient
  scientific merit to be publishable.

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But I Learned...

• The problem studied is interesting both from the
  application and the theoretical point of view.
• This work significantly extends the range of
  problems for which effective computational
  procedures exist.
• The result is non-trivial.
• Your computational results are impressive.
• I believe the theoretical results are
  interesting and worthy of publication.

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Presentations

• Invited Presentations
• Get yourself invited to nearby universities
• Contact companies for possible talks
• National/International Conferences
• Offer to set-up sessions/tracks
• Invited sessions generally much better attended
  than contributed sessions

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How to Get There
Publications
Funding
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Funding

• Government Sources
• NSF, DOD, DOE, NIH, DOT, NRO, ARO, etc.
• Govt money is worth more to university
• Government funding is peer reviewed
• University can generally get full indirect cost
• Try to get matching/tuition reduction from school
• Listen to (and visit) Jan Twomey and Suvrajeet
  Sen (get on a panel!)

15
Funding

• Industry Sources
• In our field, the lab tends to be reality, so
  dont shy away from working with companies
• A mix of academic thinking and ugly reality can
  lead to very exciting research
• For all to benefit (1) company must realize that
  you are not a consultant and (2) you must get out
  of the ivory tower
• University generally views these as good, but not
  great (lower indirect costs, low competition)

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Funding

• University Sources
• Faculty Research Grants are generally available
  to new faculty
• Clearly these are not taken in high regard with
  the university -- however, they may help propel
  you to other work
• Use this as matching to get a company interested

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Why Funding?

• Summer Salary
• Equipment
• Travel (conferences, labs, schools, etc.)
• And...

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How to Get There
Publications
Students
Funding
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Students

• Treat well your success builds on theirs
• Let them recruit new students for you
• A well-balanced portfolio of students can be
  very rewarding
• Older students can educate new students
• Older students are publishing while newer
  students are absorbing material
• Ph.D. and M.S. students can work together on
  theoretical and applied work

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Students

• Ph.D. students often used in counts to level
  the money playing field
• M.S. students can be extremely adept at solving
  well-defined problems
• Undergraduate research assistants are extremely
  enthusiastic -- and lead to future graduate
  students

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Being an Advisor

• Transitioning from student to advisor is not easy
• You need to let go and let them work
• Dont dive in, test the water
• Set a schedule that works for you
• Weekly meetings or walk-ins?
• Dont fall into work then write mode
• Demand quarterly/semester output
• Think open-pocket dissertations for output

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Interdependence
Publications
Students
Funding
23

• Now that we understand scholarly activity, how
  does it relate to getting tenure?

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Tenure Process

• Content
• Scholarship
• Teaching
• Service
• Process
• Department Review
• Outside Peer Review
• College and Dean Review
• Provost/President and Board Review

Must achieve balance!
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Content Understand What Counts!

• At Lehigh University (and most others)
• Scholarship 40
• Teaching 40
• Service 20
• Was that true?

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Understand What Counts

• Realize that it is in everybodys best interest
  that you get tenure -- you are a big investment
• Dont be afraid to talk to others
• Chair and senior faculty members
• Members of the review committee
• Administration dean, provost, president
• Peers and giants in your field
• Realize that times change the bar is always
  being raised

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Count Your Chips

• Remember everything you have done
• My dean suggests having a living vita which you
  feed once a week (maybe a month)
• Dont forget that guest lecture...
• Classify your vita
• Competitive versus non-competitive funding
• Journal article versus (reviewed) proceedings
• Invited versus contributed talks
• Have someone look at it!

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Get Recognized

• Awards are won when people do great work AND
  somebody takes the time to notice
• If someone doesnt notice you (i.e. your chair),
  wake them up!
• Many awards are designed for you
• Young IE of the Year
• CAREER Award
• New Faculty Teaching Award
• Best papers in your field

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Outside Letters

• Experts in your field
• Leading researchers in your area
• Senior faculty at leading departments
• National academy faculty
• Leaders of departments/colleges
• Current/former chairs at departments
• Deans (that were chairs)
• People that know your work, but are not
  collaborators

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• Why should I think beyond tenure?

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Down the Road

• Continued Funding
• Mobility
• Sabbaticals
• Full Professor
• National Academy...

Take advantage of being a scholar. I surely
cant think of a better life.