FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
Promotion and tenure (P&T) are milestones in a professor or instructor’s career. A P&T bid involves creating a portfolio to document one’s professional accomplishments and is subject to various types of review.
A P&T portfolio consists of documentation that demonstrates evidence of accomplishments, and includes descriptive information about one’s works published. The March 2021 memorandum by the FAU Office of the Provost states that P&T candidates need to provide the following on their publications (Danilowicz, 2021, pp. 6-7):
- Type of refereeing used
- Type of journal or press (scholarly, trade, or commercial)
- (Journal) Impact Factor: a bibliometric by Clarivate Analytics that describes the average number of times articles in a given publication is cited every year.
- Acceptance rates
- Citation counts: a number that describes the sum citations for an article, book or chapter, or other publication.
Where do I get this information?
A journal or individual work’s web page. A journal should have a link or section on their home page with its bibliometrics. An “About” page may include the Journal Impact Factor or CiteScore if it has one, the type of review and acceptance rates. If this information is not available, contact a publication’s editor.
Bibliometric web pages. Some creators of bibliometrics post their most recent numbers through their web pages. Scopus Preview provides a CiteScore (Elsevier’s bibliometric). Other bibliometrics such as SciMago also do this.
Other sources. The following sites can provide citation count information:
- Web of Science (WoS): if an article is available in WoS, it will include its citation counts.
- Google Scholar: useful for finding citation counts for articles and books.
- A publisher’s web page for a particular article or other work (see this example in Frontiers in Science).
P&T candidates are encouraged to provide the source of where they found a citation count.
What if a journal does not have a JIF or bibliometric?
Bibliometrics for journals include titles from select publication indexes like Web of Science or Scopus. If your work was published in a journal not included in either index, it may not have a JIF or other bibliometric.
More Information:
- Find Impact Factors and Other Bibliometrics: https://libguides.fau.edu/scs-research-impact/find
- Metrics Toolkit - Explore Metrics: https://www.metrics-toolkit.org/metrics/
Citation:
Danilowicz, B. (2021, March). Memorandum: Promotion and tenure ePortfolio guidelines for tenure track Faculty for 2021- 2022 [Document]. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic University. https://www.fau.edu/provost/faculty/files/P-and-T-Guidelines-Memo-2021-2022.pdf
