Studies of Scholarly Productivity in Social Work Using Citation Analysis

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Abstract
Ideally, an educator’s reputation should be based primarily on that person’s scholarly publications. However, reputation is more than the sum of one’s scholarly efforts. In this article, the authors seek to add objective information to the subjective decision-making process involved in hiring, promoting, or providing tenure to educators. The authors present norms of citations—objective indicators of reputation—for professors, associate professors, and assistant professors. These norms were derived from the Citation Index of the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Four studies were undertaken to examine scholarly productivity using the same basic methodology: citation analysis. In Study 1, the authors examined a sample of educators listed in the Encyclopedia of Social Work. These experts were used as a national norm against which other educators could compare themselves. Study 2 was based on a citation analysis of deans of all graduate schools of social work. In Study 3, the authors examined “local norms” of four particular schools of social work and discussed the differences between national and local norms. In Study 4, the authors examined “personal norms” through a detailed study of the careers of three individual professors, and compared their entirely scholarly productions against the SSCI record.

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