Promoting Stewardship of Academic Productivity in Emergency Medicine: Using the H‐index to Advance Beyond the Impact Factor

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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to characterize the publication fate of a recent 2-year sample of manuscripts declined by Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), the journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of manuscripts submitted to AEM in 2010 and 2011 that were declined by the AEM editorial review process. An online search was conducted for each declined paper, to determine whether or not it was published in another clinical/scientific journal after being declined by AEM. The investigators used Scopus and Google Scholar, using the submitting author's name, the verbatim title, and key words and phrases from the title, to search for subsequent publication of each paper.Results: Of 1,542 manuscript submissions to the journal in 2010 and 2011, 1,052 papers were declined. Of these, 693 (65.9%) were subsequently published elsewhere, in a total of 229 journals: 362 papers in 22 different EM journals, 81 in 14 EM subspecialty journals, 237 in 185 non-EM journals, and 13 in eight nursing journals. Papers were published a median of 16.7 months (interquartile range [IQR] = 11.8 to 22.0 months) after being declined at AEM. Of the 229 journals, 19 do not have h-indices. The median h-index of the remaining 210 journals is 36 (IQR = 17 to 64; maximum = 229; AEM's h-index is 78). Thirty of these 210 journals, publishing 43 papers, have higher h-indices than AEM; the other 650 papers were published in journals either with lower h-indices than AEM's (n = 180 journals) or in journals without h-indices (n = 19 journals). U.S. and non-U.S. authors had similar rates of subsequent publication (65.3% vs 66.6%, p = 0.69) for papers initially declined by AEM. Papers in the educational advances category were less likely to be subsequently published than those in the original contributions (p < 0.0001) and brief reports (p = 0.0137) categories.Conclusions: Nearly two-thirds of manuscripts declined by SAEM's journal are eventually published elsewhere, in a large number and wide variety of both EM and non-EM journals, in a median of 16.7 months. Authors of manuscripts declined by AEM should consider submission elsewhere, as subsequent publication of these manuscripts in another journal is probable.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Manuscripts declined by AEM , when subsequently published elsewhere, were generally published in journals with lower h‐indices. (H‐index was chosen as the preferred measure of overall journal quality as it is less susceptible to “gaming,” and accounts for citation history over each journal's entire life, not just the prior 2 years …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

If At First You Don't Succeed: The Fate of Manuscripts Rejected by Academic Emergency Medicine

Grant

Cone

2015

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“…The results of the study should be interpreted as an association rather than a cause/effect relationship, as we were unable to assess the role of institutional resources, mentors, or baseline differences between recipients and nonrecipients. We also did not compare the quality of manuscripts, primarily because typical indicators such as impact factor or h‐index are either imperfect or were difficult to assess for the given time frame . We could not adjust for the clinical work required of all applicants.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Grant Mechanisms on Postaward Academic Productivity

Safdar

Paradise

McMillian

et al. 2015

Objectives: The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) provides research training grants, but the future productivity of award recipients and nonrecipients is unclear. The study objective was to assess the association of the two SAEM research training mechanisms with scholarly productivity and rates of subsequent funding between nonrecipients and recipients. A secondary goal was to evaluate the productivity metrics for fellows trained at the Institutional Research Training Grant (IRTG) programs. Methods:The authors surveyed all 2002 through 2011 Research Training Grant (RTG; n = 64) and Institutional Research Training Grant (IRTG; n = 38) applicants. RTG outcomes were federal funding as a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI using National Institutes of Health RePORTER and scholarly productivity using PubMed. IRTG outcomes were SAEM-approved research fellowships and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute K12 training awards. Sites applying for or receiving the IRTG multiple times were only counted once. Relative risks (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated.Results: Over 10 years, nine of 64 (14%) RTG and 10 of 38 (26%) IRTG applications were funded (two sites received multiple awards). Federal funding was obtained by seven of nine (78%) RTG recipients and 22 of 55 (40%) RTG nonrecipients (RR = 1.94, 95% CI = 1.21 to 3.13). All nine (100%, 95% CI = 72% to 100%) of RTG recipients had at least one manuscript, compared to 48 of the 55 (87%, 95% CI = 76% to 95%) nonrecipients. All nine (100%, 95% CI = 72% to 100%) RTG recipients remained in academics versus 44 of 55 (80%, 95% CI = 67% to 90%) nonrecipients. For the IRTG, four of seven awardees (57%, 95% CI = 18% to 90%) versus 0 of the 16 (0%, 95% CI = 0 to 17%) nonrecipients received National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute K12 awards (RR = 19.1, 95% CI = 1.16 to 314.0). Additionally, five of seven (71%, 95% CI = 29% to 96%) institutions became SAEM-approved fellowships compared to one of 16 (6%, 95% CI = 0 to 30%) nonrecipients (RR = 11.4, 95% CI = 1.61 to 80.7).Conclusions: SAEM RTG recipients were more likely to obtain federal funding postaward than nonrecipients. IRTG recipients were more likely to develop successful research training programs than nonrecipients.ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2015;22:150-156

“…Scholarly productivity and scientific impact are key to measuring the accomplishment, value, and contribution of individual academicians within academic emergency medicine departments . The use of bibliometric measures to quantify scholarly performance has been growing across academic medicine .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Scholarly Productivity and Impact: Developing a Quantifiable, Norm‐based Benchmarking Methodology for Academic Emergency Medicine

Boudreaux

Higgins

Reznik-Zellen

et al. 2019

Background: Quantifying and benchmarking scholarly productivity of emergency medicine faculty is challenging. While performance indicators including publication and citation counts are available, use of indicators to create normative references has lagged. The authors developed methodology to benchmark emergency medicine academician scholarly productivity (e.g., publications over time) and impact (e.g., citations per publication over time) against an appropriate reference group.Methods: The methodology includes: 1) define time frame and scholarly metrics; 2) identify representative population; 3) reconcile alternative author names; 4) use analytic tool to identify scholarly output; 5) build database containing metrics; and 6) create benchmarking statistics, including subsamples. This study included emergency medicine faculty from 2011 to 2015, with total peer-reviewed publications and citations per publication as scholarly metrics.Results: In the United States at the time of the search (2016) there were 200 academic emergency departments, 186 with public faculty listings, which yielded 6,727 academicians. For each academician, the authors calculated statistics about peer-reviewed publications and average citations per publication from 2011 to 2015 and created benchmarking rulers using percentile ranks. Productivity by year of graduation with terminal degree was compared within each subsample, finding that newly graduated faculty demonstrated higher productivity than their within-rank peers who graduated earlier. Finally, benchmarking tables were created that allow comparison of peer-reviewed publication counts and citations per publication for individual academicians against the norm.Conclusions: This benchmarking method can serve as a model for norm-based scaling of scholarly productivity for emergency medicine. This has important implications for performance review, promotion and hiring, and evaluating group productivity.S cholarly productivity and scientific impact are key to measuring the accomplishment, value, and contribution of individual academicians within academic emergency medicine departments. 1-3 The use of bibliometric measures to quantify scholarly performance has been growing across academic medicine. 4-23 The