Measuring Quality

Michael J. Kurtz

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Outline

1. JournalsBollen

Reads

2. People3. Departments4. Countries

Individuals

• Age is critical

• Citations• Reads• SumProd• Read10

Departments

• Departments are the sum of their members

• Linear measures, such as total cites, are inadequate. Sandage = 25 times average tenured faculty at top 10

Countries

• Scientific Productivity is proportional to GDP squared divided by population

• SP is proportional to the number of scientists times the per capita GDP

• Downloads in astronomy are a more stable indicator of SP than citations or papers

Literature

• Bollen, et al “Journal Status” arXiv:cs.DL/0601030 (2006)

• Kurtz, et al “The Bibliometric Properties of Article Readership Information”, JASIST 56, 111 (2005)

• Kurtz, et al “Worldwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library”, JASIST 56, 36 (2005)