Measuring research output: productivity of social work academics

Shardlow, Steven M, Foley, Marian, Hesk, Gabi, & McCaughan, Su. (2015). Paper presented at the Track: Papers In many countries, indicators used to measure research performance of academic staff have become an increasingly common element of university life. Measurement of individual research output has been aggregated using various algorithms to generate tables that contribute to ordinal rankings of universities and departments. In the US, there has been a long and well established tradition of analysis of social work academics productivity in respect of key journals. This approach, as a measure of research output, has not been widely used elsewhere. Following the protocols established by Ligon, Jackson, and Thyer (2007), the productivity of social work academics that have published in five UK social work journals between 2004 and 2009 will be compared with those that have published in five US social work journals. Some differences are evident, for example the UK journals contained a proportionately larger number of articles published by authors from countries other than where the journal was based than did the US journals. The advantages and disadvantages of this method of measuring research productivity are explored and the implications for the development of social work academic life investigated. References Ligon, J., Jackson, D. L., & Thyer, B. (2007). Academic Affiliations of Social Work Journal Article Authors from 1993-2003: A Productivity Analysis Spanning 25 Years of Social Work Scholarship. Journal of Social Service Research, 33(2), 13-20.