--by Kris Twesme
In assigning publication and citation counts to programs, Budd and Seavey used the institutional affiliations of the authors at the time of publication or citation. If an individual moved during the period of the study, his or her publication and citation counts were assigned based on the period of time the faculty member was affiliated with each institution.
Budd and Seavey based their study, covering the period of 1981 through 1992 inclusive, on the annual Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) for both journal publications and citations data. This data source reports the corporate affiliation of published authors but not of cited authors: they state, "In some instances lists of publications by individuals [were] used to assign citations" (p.5). Books, columns, editorials, and book reviews were not included in any of the counts.
There appears to be a positive correlation between the counts of publications and citations and factors such as the relative emphasis on research and the offering of doctoral degree(s). Drexel's high ranking is exciting given its relative size: eight of the top ten schools have a Carnegie classification -- a scheme based in part on program size and funding -- of Research I or II. Drexel is classified as a Doctoral Granting II university, somewhat smaller than either of the Research university classifications.
IST's performance is also very consistent across ranking criteria. The researchers calculated composite scores for the top fifteen programs by assigning a score for each ranking level (fifteen points for a number-one rank, fourteen for a number two, etc.) and totalling the four numbers. IST's composite score places it sixth among ranked programs.
| IST's PROGRAM | Number of Journal Articles Published |
Number of Citations to Journal Articles |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking | Number | Ranking | Number | |
| Total Counts | 7 | 67 | 7 | 899 |
| Per Capita Counts* | 8 | 4.37 | 7 | 58.76 |
Per Capita calculations are valuable in providing a less skewed picture of productivity than do raw numbers; larger programs with larger faculties would clearly be favored in raw number comparisons.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Budd and Seavey included only scholarly, "substantive" journal articles (published and cited) from journals indexed by the SSCI in this study. They do not provide their criteria for defining an article as "scholarly" or "substantive." They note that the exclusive use of journal articles is likely to bias the study in favor of specialties within LIS that communicate heavily by this publication format (information science vs. library history, for example). Their choice of the SSCI would also tend to work against journals which emphasize the humanities rather than the social sciences.
CITATION
As used in this document, a citation is a reference to or quoting of a previously published article.