Saturday, February 25, 2012
Publishing norms?
I have now finished sending off my paper on cotton in German Togoland. It is my second publication dealing at least in part with an African subject. Since I have started working at the University of Ghana a year ago I have had one peer reviewed journal article and one book chapter accepted for publication. The journal article is available online now at SpringerLink, but I do not know when the print version will be out. I also noticed that six encyclopedia articles for three different volumes that I wrote before coming here were published last semester. That gives me eight small publications this academic year. I am not sure what the average is for most history lecturers in the world. I suspect at US universities it might be much, much, higher, but I do not really know. I would, however, like to know how I rank in terms of productivity compared to the average starting lecturer in the US or Europe. Can anybody give me an idea how much a starting assistant professor publishes each year at a typical US institution of higher learning? Am I way behind the US and European norms for publishing?
It really depends on the institution. Occidental is oriented toward teaching, and so one publication every couple of years would be enough to get you tenure. At a research institution like USC, there is a much higher expectation of publication, but I really don't know if there's a "norm" or not. Based on my experience, I'd say your output is relatively high for a non-research institution.
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