How many peer-reviewed journal articles is a fair expectation for a university professor, teaching a full-load of courses? How many publications are expected at your institution?
- Nafees Mohammad , at my institution, a professor has to serve at an Associate Professor rank for a minimum of 5 years before they are considered for a full professor. So that willl means a minimum of 3 publications per year are expected using your requirements and our time frame.
i think it is somewhat discipline-specific. In my discipline, public health, two peer reviewed journal articles per year is a fair expectation.
In my own opinion as a young and aspiring scholar, you were right by pointing out the fact that it is discipline-specific. For me, I would like to have at least three in a year.
Professors may have more because they work and do research in collaboration with their students. This may increase the number of peer reviewed publications.
For the post if professor, 15 paper are required. After appointment, due to research students, publication become a continuous process.
Dear Olutosin Ademola Otekunrin , thanks for sharing your perspective. As a professor at full rank, I like to set high expectations of myself, as I try to publish at least 6 a year. However, as a department head, I think it is fair for the system to expect a minimum of two
Dear Prof. Gulzar Shah, you're a role model to young and aspiring researchers on this platform. Thank you for the positive push in terms of scientific research publication.
- Nafees Mohammad , at my institution, a professor has to serve at an Associate Professor rank for a minimum of 5 years before they are considered for a full professor. So that willl means a minimum of 3 publications per year are expected using your requirements and our time frame.
The more journals and articles you have, the more educational and scientific reputation you have.
For a university professor, the more the published research articles in high quality peer reviewed journals are considered that a person is doing good amount of research work and considered as good researcher. In our university directly there is no complusion. Some may publish one this year and three next year. Publications are considered for promotions. But at least one has to do or publish at least one or two good quality research articles per year in order to make one's research active.
В нашем университете в план научной работы профессора входит ежегодная публикация двух статей в рецензируемых журналах, входящих в российский и международные индексы цитирования.
Dear Gulzar Shah,
In our country criteria for the post of professor us 15 papers 5 papers published in the last five years + 5 years post PhD experience. Number of papers per year not applicable. Someone may published before PhD or after PhD with any numbers of perper per year. But five paper must be published recently i.e. last five years. If someone has more than 15 papers, 2 marks are given per paper for first author and 1 mark is given for 2nd or 3rd author. 10 marks are maximum. In this way 5 more paper as first author or 10 paper as 2nd author will be required. To round the figure 25 papers are required for a comfortable competition.
It varies by institutions. For mine, about 30. Your position amonf the authors also matters as you must be in the first 3 to get more points. Services provided also counts.
Publications in impact journals are important rather than papers in non impact Journals.
I enjoy reading the useful replies; very informative and interesting!
I don’t know exact commitments and figures it varies from my university to another in Turkey 🇹🇷, don’t know the exact situation in UK as professor posts are fairly limited. For example there are hands full professors in radiology in whole UK and not very much encouraged. I think I have more than enough publications than that of an average professors in UK 🇬🇧 . Commitments to education and teaching much more emphasised in UK professorships. There is also so called visitor Professorship temporary title dominantly in teaching in house and overseas. In contrast in my native country 🇹🇷 In Turkey all universities has several professor posts like in the States 🇺🇸. It is multifaceted and all areas needs to be covered. Teaching, supervising, contributions to the conferences, SCI or SCI expanded peer reviewed journal publications are must. I think at least 1st authored original study publications along with 5 or more seem to be mandatory but I am not quite certain as all academic title awards changed by high education council (YÖK in Turkish ) in 2018. Reviewer for peer reviewed journals are desirable as well. There may be many more parameters scores which I don’t know it’s entiretY. But I know there is a scoring system for any academic title requirements.
Many thanks bring up this discussion here dear @Gulzar Shah very much appreciated
I feel my RG colleague Ilhami Unluoglu Prof.Dr. İlhami Unluoglu would know more in dept if he is aware of the question. I believe he would reply.
Interesting! thank you for your question. In our country, several criteria are taken in account. Papers, as well as international and national symposia, supervising doctoral thesis and Ms thesis, as well as other activities that help to inhance educational and research in the university.
Dear Emre Pakdemirli, thanks for your answer. Shortly; In Turkey, it is expected from all the academicians to be active and effective in all fields of the academia; teaching, supervising, contributing to conferences, SCI or SCI extended peer-reviewed journal publications, etc.
The necessity of these activities is obligatory for academic advancements. YÖK (High Educational Council in Turkiye) declared national levels. All the universities have to obey these leves for different disciplines, but universities have to right to raise these levels.
It depends, I think 3 maybe! However, it also depends on which type of journals you are publishing in and what is your own position among the authors of any paper! For University Professor or any researcher, it is important to assess how much is his own contribution in the paper rather than only riding on the work of one's students or fellow colleagues!
1 to 2 in good journals. The review process might take months as well as the "publishing queue"
Dear Dr. Shah,
Your question looks very simple, but it is not easy to answer following the condition of my country, India.
1. You will get many professors of highest rank without any publication with his/her name as a first author.
2. Many researchers/ teachers are having one or two et al. publication in some unrelated subject/s used for entry and promotion in the service.
3. There are many journals who are ready to publish anything given to them. You have to just pay money for that. Some of such journals having high number in some international ranking.
Such publications are also performed for the same purposes.
If the system of a country fail to appoint intelligent, studious and interested people in research in the university level teaching or research, the condition of the university or country will not be very good.
Number of publication means NOTHING now a days.
Regards,
In our University professor should have3 first author publications in pubmed journal and every year at least one publication.
It depends of the role of the Professor as researcher in the team and in the papers, from the quality, profoundness and soundness of the published research of the Professor, and from the activity and time spent of the Professor as PROFESSOR.
Dear Nabil Eid , my sincere apologies for the confusion. My question is: How many peer-reviewed journal articles (meaning articles in journals that are "peer-reviewed" rather than no-review or fake-review journals) is a fair expectation by the institutions employing university professor? I hope have clarified the confusion.
It is based on according to University Recruitment Policy. Internal Recruitment and Open recruitment demands different array of peer reviewed journals. Also their marking may be different.
2-3/yr depending on the difficulty of topic and rank of the journal.
It would depend vastly on the field. In some fields it is rather easy to obtain grant money, recruit research assistants, conduct experiments and publish. This is true of many engineering and pure science fields and not so much in the arts and humanities. I would say that in general at least one authentic publication per year is required especially for new professors who are still untenured.
To be eligible for full professor you have to serve as an assistant professor for 5 years during which you submit 7 research articles in well known journals, 3 of which should be original work.
what a great collection of stories and opinions. Thank you so much all, for your valuable contributions.
Dear professor Gulzar Shah
In my country, according to the legislation and also with the good sense, for a university professor, teaching a full-load of courses, it is expected that he teaches.
Can you explain how is it exactly in your State/Country/Story according to the Legislation and institution?
May be I did not understand your question. Are you asking how many papers is necessary to be hired as a full professor?
If that is the question, in my country the Legislation is very clear: Scientific Merit, i.e., real contribution for development of scientific knowledge, and valuable Pedagogic Activity previously performed, not the number of papers published in Scientific Journals.
Your answer seems incomplete. Please show exactly the State or Country legislation, establishing the mentioned exact percentages and a minimum and maximum number of journal papers “to remain in good status”. There are many different ways to develop and present scientific results, I suppose. Scientific research is not the same as producing sausages. Gulzar Shah
This discussion seems to be neglecting journal quality. A large volume of papers in predatory journals, or journals of low quality, is often considered worse than a lack of publications. We require at least two journal articles every five years from journals meeting specifically defined standards as well as three additional validating experiences such as proceedings from national conferences.
Taking about peer reviewed journal article is not sufficient. Questions should be related as how many research paper need to be published in the journals of Dean's list; journal of FT 45+; journal of UTD list, journal of ABCD; etc. In my view three papers in ABCD journal list and one in FT 45 journal is essential for promotion from one level of professorship to another level.
Dhruba Gautam
Your suggestions are good but If I was a junior faculty I will never follow it. It helps the administrators job of terminating unproductive faculty very easy.
For a university professor on an average, atleast one or two peer reviewed journals per year could be the expectation. Depending on the projects, research and consultancy the figure may go high.
For a professor in the university, he also needs to publish books or be one of the authors in known standard books at least one per year
@ Adebayo Adekunkle
Sorry, books are not counted because it is usually nothing new except better description of an existing knowledge and arrangement is between the author and publisher. In addition, there is usually no blind peer-reviewers. Only a few books can count but one can get rich through that avenue but within a department it has a limited weight. In my school, books are given the lowest points.
Chuck A Arize , thank you for sharing your perspective about books. Many of the colleagues at my university have differing views. I share your perspective but some say it is discipline specific.
Gulzar Shah
Thanks to you my friend! Books very often simply explain something better than another book. They cover the same stuff except one person is better at telling a story or arranging it, but they usually cover the same thing and therefore creates no new knowledge. Sometimes, another faculty member may decide to use another book by a different author because he/she for one reason another does not respect a faculty member. Or may just use that book for one semester and dump it. All said, I have never seen a book go beyond a C.
Of course, when a senior faculty can cast a vote on you, and has political power by longevity, mosquitoes of the dean or bigger than dean, please always let him/her win the argument. This doesn't matter in the end.
Great responses. Thank you all for your participation in this discussion.
Dear Chuck A Arize , I agree with your reasoning for books not getting as much credit in faculty research evaluations as articles.
A university professor is one who has post graduate students and research scholars. Peer reviewed journal papers comes from people who are doing projects and thesis. Hence there is no limitation for the papers. However, one can expect one or two peer reviewed journal papers per year.
I journal article. if at all possible will suffice! A professor has many other things: many committes, studying, teaching, university service and tutoring students.
That type of requirements are not similar for different universities.In Cuba we have organized normally the research in Projects,the protocol or the master file of the project establish the number and type of results against time,including the publications! this is our major obligation,to fullfill the aims of the project!
Normally 1-2 good publications in journals of first or second quartille of visibility are correct for a proffesor in a year! or a patent!!! or a secret knowHow,recognized by the Stering Commitee!
thanks!
Gustavo
In my view, how many research paper is not major issue, but which journal published research work is important. Which journal means the standard of journal. Is that journal counts by FT50, ABCD, UTD, Scoop, etc?
Number of articles are not that important, but the quality of the the paper.As someone has already written that apart from teaching there are other responsibilities also.Keeping that in mind I think 2 paper per year is ok.
In my own opinion, If you have been able to contribute to knowledge in all with like 20 peer reviewed published research papers you are qualified to be promoted to the post of a Professor after the due promotion years. i.e counting all his/her research papers together.
I journal article in a top-indexed list in Scopus or WOS will be good. An assistant professor should be given more time to get organize so one paper plus several submissions will be adequate. There are many other things we do in the university such as several committees, studying, teaching, university service and tutoring students so a professor really doesn't have much time left
Hello, number not so important in comparison with volubility of research paper.
This person is the example of the department so he has to show some leadership and I journal and current knowledge of the field and ability to guide the new faculty
Different universities do have their own criteria. The concerned should have to check the list of things they should have in advance to be qualified for an associate professor or a professor. Some universities might concentrate on number of journal articles or top-tier articles, whereas some others would count teaching experience and the number of students they supervised. Mostly, universities count teaching and research as the basic criteria for promotion. Only the score differs in each level.
i believe I paper is a good start but we cannot have a situation where the professor has zero papers
Dr. Alan F Rawle , this is the second time your comments on RG make me laugh/smile in a single day (I am not doing much laughing these days, being a PhD candidate nearing his defense and all!).
Dr. Gulzar Shah , I would say it is more about the h-Index than the number of yearly publications. h-Index, although flawed, can say much about BOTH quality and quantity of publications.
Number of papers are important but significance of papers are more important
For a University professor, two peer reviewed articles per year published in journals be the fair expectation. The reason being post graduate students, scholars and for some projects be there. Hence these may be utilized to get a good research output in form of publications.
In my University,
- 10 Ph.D. and 10 Master students were graduated under his supervision.
- He published more than 250 research articles (The majority is ISI/Q1).
Just by this year, he promoted to a full professor.
Dear Gulzar Shah
In my Institution 2-3 peer-reviewed journal articles is a fair expectation for a university professor per year, teaching a full-load of courses.
Best regards
To become a professor, it used to be 20. Now it is about 60. But after you become a professor, for your CPD, I don't think there is a specific number.
@Bayo Olushola Omoyiola, I quite agree with your submission, in addition the requirements to become a professor is not static, it changes with time. It is likely to exceed 60 years to come
Yes I do agree with you. With so much teaching load, expecting more than 2 research paper per year from a teacher is unfair.
It varies base on different institutional policies. I think average of 20 publications qualifies to be a Professor
No much fixed guidelines probably but post phd publications are very important to be considered. In india there is API system to evaluate and promote.. In that API.. publication in referred journals carry many points.. more publication, more points
Is it just number of publications, as some developing countries, or the quality of the publications? Most professors from these countries, see how they are rated on researchgate, google scholar, etc even after over 40 publications.
From 20 up. However, many universities count points not number of papers.
To my understanding emphasis should be more on quality of publication rather than the number of the same.However,for Professors at least 20 publications of high quality should be the criteria.
It should be how good the publications are, quality will always supersede quantity
I should depend mostly on institutional requirements.
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