Competing for impact and prestige: Deciphering the “alphabet soup” of academic publications and faculty productivity metrics

Accurate quantification of scholarly productivity continues to pose a significant challenge to academic medical institutions seeking to standardize faculty performance metrics. Numerous approaches have been described in this domain, from subjective measures employed in the past to rapidly evolving objective assessments of today. Metrics based on publication characteristics include a variety of easily categorized, normalized, referenced, and quantifiable data points. In general, such measures can be broadly grouped as being author-, manuscript-, and publication/journal-specific. Commonly employed units of measurement are derived from the number of publications and/or citations, in various combinations and derivations. In aggregate, these metrics are utilized to more objectively assess academic productivity, mainly for the purpose of determining faculty promotion and tenure potential; evaluating grant application/renewal competitiveness; journal/publication, and institutional benchmarking; faculty recruitment, retention, and placement; as well as various departmental and institutional performance assessments. This article provides an overview of different measures of academic productivity and scientific impact, focusing on bibliometric data utilization, including advantages and disadvantages of each respective methodological approach. The following core competencies are addressed in this article: Interpersonal skills and communication, practice-based learning and improvement, systems-based practice.