Cautions for Interpreting the Data

Readers need to interpret the numbers and percentages presented on various web pages with a certain amount of caution. They constitute valuable guidelines for comparing departments. But they do not constitute perfect reflections of reality. Let me explain.

The basic problem is, like all such quantitative measures, they are shaped by the contexts that produced them. Thus one needs to know the processes that generated these data in order to know how to assess them.

The data on anthropological connected programs was, for the most part, gathered from conversations with chairs (or individuals they referred me to) plus a fairly extensive examination of each school’s website. Chairs were offered an opportunity to comment on and correct the data presented here. A number have. But not all chairs have offered feedback on the materials relating to their departments. Thus, while I believe the quantitative summations are relatively fair reflections of the data they represent, I would treat them with a certain amount of caution until I receive feedback from additional chairs. The guidelines used in sorting through various programs are described at
http://www.publicanthropology.org/ProgramsAndPeople/
ExplanationOfProgramCategories.htm . I would encourage readers to examine them.

The citation counts, perhaps because they relate to a commonly used anthropological measure (ISI's Social Science Citation Index), have generated more heat. Readers need know that the counts can vary depending on whether (1) a person’s middle name is included, (2) an initial is used instead of a first name, and (3) a person’s name is misspelled. There is no simple way to know which form of a person’s name to use in searching the LexisNexis database. A person may include his or her middle name in professional publications but reporters may delete it in writing their articles. A trial run comparing a number of individuals with and without their middle names suggested that more citations tended to exist on an individual when the middle name was NOT included.

I have described in some detail the exact procedures used in accumulating these data so others, if they wish, can replicate them (see: http://www.publicanthropology.org/ProgramsAndPeople/
HowDataCollected.htm ). Various individuals have done this and, where they found higher counts – by including a middle name, for example, or a common misspelling of their name – I have added these citations to their total counts. Using a standardized procedure, as done here, to deal with a range of individuals, allows one to compare these individuals despite their differences. Still, these differences can affect particular individual’s counts so I have tried to be flexible in addressing problems pointed out to me.

What I feel the LexisNexis citation counts do fairly well is provide a relative sense of how various departments compare with one another in respect to citation counts in Major National/International News as well as an assortment of more publicly-oriented magazines and journals -- especially when framed, as it is, in terms of those with five or more citations. What is being picked up here by the quantatitive analysis, whatever its imperfections, is an assessment, in general terms, of to what degree faculty members are (or are not) cited in the media. I perceive the citation counts regarding the five or more level as constituting a reasonable guideline for framing comparisons between departments. It does not, in and of itself, accurately reflect every individual's each and every citation in Major National/International Printed Media just the general tenor of a department .

If readers explore who are and are not cited extensively in the media, they will perceive an interesting pattern. Contrary to what some nay-sayers might suggest, those with high citation counts have not immersed themselves in sensationalist topics. What comes across from a broad examination of the data is the media’s interest in solid academic research about topics of broad public concern. It is pretty much what many would hope. Professional, credible scholarship has a place in public conversations.

To balance the quantitative nature of the LexisNexis counts, I included a more qualitative measure of public outreach – a list of an individuals’ outreach activities as presented by that individual. Faculty from over half the departments sent me such information. But one might wonder about those who did not respond. Were they too busy with other matters or did they have nothing to contribute? I do not know. I twice asked faculty members for this information -- once through their department chairs and another through individually addressed emails. In both cases, individuals only needed to (a) click on a link to upload their public outreach information or (b) send me the information via email. In respect to those who did not provide any such information, at some point one has to accept that failure to send material, at some level and/or to some degree, constitutes a limited commitment to highlighting public outreach activities within the discipline in an open and public way so that different departments can be compared with one another in respect to their public outreach activities.

 

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