The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the bibliometric contributions of high-impact social work faculty.
Methods:
Toward this end, we used a sample comprising fellows (N = 143) affiliated with the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW). To quantify impact, we relied primarily upon the h-index (a measure of lifetime scholarly impact) and the m-index (which adjusts for career length).
Results:
Analyses revealed the mean h-index value for SSWR fellows (M = 26.44, SD = 14.72) was substantially lower than the mean for AASWSW fellows (M = 32.52, SD = 15.96), but minimal differences existed in m-index values. H- and m-index values for the 40 highest impact scholars ranged, respectively, from 33 to 93 and 1.13 to 3.33.
Conclusions:
The results indicate the social work profession includes many researchers who are making an exceptional scientific impact.
AshkanasyN. M. (2007). Playing the citation game. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 643–645.
2.
BaneyxA. (2008). “Publish or Perish” as citation metrics used to analyze scientific output in the humanities: International case studies in economics, geography, social sciences, philosophy, and history. Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis, 56, 363–371.
3.
BarnerJ. R.HoloskoM. J.ThyerB. A. (2014). American social work faculty and psychology faculty members’ scholarly productivity: A controlled comparison of citation impact using the h-index. British Journal of Social Work, 44, 2448–2458.
4.
BarnerJ. R.HoloskoM. J.ThyerB. A.KingS.Jr. (2015). Research productivity in top-ranked schools in psychology and social work: Does having a research culture matter?Journal of Social Work Education, 51, 5–18.
5.
BatistaP. D.CampiteliM. G.KinouchiO.MartinezA. S. (2006). Is it possible to compare researchers with different scientific interests?Scientometrics, 68, 179–189.
6.
BloomM.KleinW. C. (1995). Publications and citations: A study of faculty at leading schools of social work. Journal of Social Work Education, 31, 377–387.
7.
CohenJ.CohenP. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8.
EggheL. (2006). Theory and practice of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69, 131–152.
9.
FlexnerA. (1915/2001). Is social work a profession?Research on Social Work Practice, 11, 152–165.
10.
FranceschetM. (2010). A comparison of bibliometric indicators for computer science scholars and journals on Web of Science and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 83, 243–258.
11.
GrapinS. L.KranzlerJ. H.DaleyM. L. (2013). Scholarly productivity and impact of school psychology faculty in APA-accredited programs. Psychology in Schools, 50, 87–101.
12.
GreenR. G. (2005). The paradox of faculty publications in professional journals. Social Work in Health Care, 41, 103–108.
13.
GreenR. G.BaskindF. R. (2007). The second decade of the faculty publication project: Journal article publications and the importance of faculty scholarship. Journal of Social Work Education, 43, 281–295.
14.
GreenR. G.BentleyK. J. (1994). Attributes, experiences, and career productivity of successful social work scholars. Social Work, 39, 405–412.
HarzingA.-W.AlakangasS.AdamsD. (2014). HIa: An individual annual h-index to accommodate disciplinary and career length differences. Scientometrics, 99, 811–821.
18.
HirschJ. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 16569–16572.
19.
HirschJ. E.Buela-CasalG. (2014). The meaning of the h-index. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 14, 161–164.
20.
HodgeD. R.LacasseJ. R. (2011a). Evaluating journal quality: Is the h-index a better measure than impact factors?Research on Social Work Practice, 21, 222–230.
21.
HodgeD. R.LacasseJ. R. (2011b). Ranking disciplinary journals with the Google Scholar h-index: A new tool for constructing cases for tenure, promotion, and other professional decisions. Journal of Social Work Education, 47, 579–596.
22.
HodgeD. R.LacasseJ. R.BensonO. (2012). Influential publications in social work discourse: The 100 most highly cited articles in disciplinary journals: 2000-09. British Journal of Social Work, 42, 765–782.
23.
HoldenG.BarkerK.Covert-VailL.RosenbergG.CohenS. A. (2008). Does social work abstracts work?Research on Social Work Practice, 18, 487–499.
24.
HoldenG.RosenbergG.BarkerK. (Eds.). (2005). Bibliometrics in social work. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
25.
HoloskoM. J.BarnerJ. R. (2016). Research productivity in top-ranked schools in psychology and social work: Research cultures do matter!Research on Social Work Practice, 26, 278–285.
26.
HoloskoM. J.BarnerJ. R.AllenJ. L. (2016). Citation impact of women in social work: Exploring gender and research culture. Research on Social Work Practice, 26, 723–729.
27.
HowardM. O.GarlandE. L. (2015). Social work research: 2044. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 6, 173–200.
28.
Huggins-HoytK. Y.HoloskoM. J.BriggsH. E.BarnerJ. R. (2015). Citation impact scores of top African American scholars in social work schools: The story behind the data. Research on Social Work Practice, 25, 164–170.
29.
JacobsJ. A. (2009). Assessing the visibility of articles published in gender & society with google scholar. Gender & Society, 23, 817–832.
30.
JonesS. J.FongC. J.TorresL. G.YooJ. H.DeckerM. L.RobinsonD. H. (2010). Productivity in educational psychology journals from 2003-2008. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 35, 11–16.
31.
KeloharjuM. (2008). What’s new in finance?European Financial Management, 14, 564–608.
32.
KleinW. C.BloomM. (1992). Studies of scholarly productivity in social work using citation analysis. Journal of Social Work Education, 28, 291–299.
33.
KwiekM. (2016). The European research elite: A cross-national study of highly productive academics in 11 countries. Higher Education, 71, 379–397.
34.
LacasseJ. R.HodgeD. R.BeanK. F. (2011). Evaluating the productivity of social work scholars using the h-index. Research on Social Work Practice, 21, 599–607.
35.
LigonJ.JacksonD. L.ThyerB. (2007). Academic affiliations of social work journal article authors from 1999-2003: A productivity analysis spanning 25 years of social work scholarship. Journal of Social Service Research, 33, 13–20.
36.
LindseyD. (1976). Distinction, achievement, and editorial board membership. American Psychologist, 31, 799–804.
37.
MacRobertsM. H.MacRobertsB. R. (2010). Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom-cited influences. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61, 1–13.
38.
MarshallI.JrSmithB. D.GreenM. T.AndersonB.HarryS. V.ByrdY. M.…HillS. (2016). Scholarly productivity of social work faculty at historically Black colleges and universities: Are h-index scores a suitable measure?Journal of Social Work Education, 52, 95–107.
39.
MartinezM. A.HerreraM.ContrerasE.RuizA.Herrera-ViedmaE. (2015). Characterizing highly cited papers in social work through h-classics. Scientometrics, 102, 1713–1729.
40.
MingersJ. (2009). Measuring the research contribution of management academics using the Hirsch-index. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 60, 1143–1153.
41.
MonodS.BrennanM.TheologianE. R.MartinE.RochatS.BulaC. J. (2011). Instruments measuring spirituality in clinical research: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26, 1345–1357.
42.
MoussaS.TouzaniM. (2010). Ranking marking journals using the Google Scholar-based hg-index. Journal of Informetrics, 4, 107–117.
43.
PardeckJ. T. (2002). Scholarly productivity of editors of social work and psychology journals. Psychological Reports, 90, 1051–1054.
44.
PardeckJ. T.MeinertR. G. (1999). Scholarly achievements of the Social Work editorial board and consulting editors: A commentary. Research on Social Work Practice, 9, 86–91.
45.
ParkerJ. N.AllesinaS.LortieC. J. (2013). Characterizing a scientific elite (B): Publication and citation patterns of the most highly cited scientists in environmental science and ecology. Scientometrics, 94, 469–480.
46.
PerronB. E.VictorB. G.HodgeD. R.Salas-WrightC. P.VaughnM. G.TaylorR. J. (2016). Laying the foundation for scientometric research: A data science approach. Research on Social Work Practice. doi: 10.1177/1049731515624966.
47.
PuckettT. (2003). Australia’s leading social work authors. Australian Social Work, 56, 267–274.
48.
SchreiberM. (2008). A modification of the h-index: The h m-index accounts for multi-authored manuscripts. Journal of Informetrics, 2, 211–216.
49.
SpiveyC. A.WilksS. E. (2004). Reference list accuracy in social work journals. Research on Social Work Practice, 14, 281–286.
50.
StataCorp. (2013). Stata statistical software: Release 13. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.
51.
ThyerB. A.BentleyK. J. (1986). Academic affiliations of social work authors: A citation analysis of six major journals. Journal of Social Work Education, 22, 67–73.
52.
ThyerB. A.PolkG. (1997). Social work and psychology professor’s scholarly productivity: A controlled comparison of cited journal articles. Journal of Applied Social Sciences, 21, 105–110.
und HalbachO. V. B. (2011). How to judge a book by its cover? How useful are bibliometric indices for the evaluation of “scientific quality” or “scientific productivity”?Annals of Anatomy, 193, 191–196.
55.
VanclayJ. K. (2008). Gauging the impact of journals. Forest Ecology and Management, 256, 507–509.
