Library Development of Scholarly Output Measurement Tool

ABSTRACT

A significant measure of academic productivity of any institution is the annual output of peer-reviewed publications. Accurately reporting scholarly output by an academic medical center can be a daunting task as there are many variables and numerous definitions to consider. This article describes an enhancement of the existing author-level, unit-of-measure method used to identify and quantify scholarly productivity of the physician faculty and housestaff. This institution is characterized as having a pluralistic medical model that is defined as health care setting that utilizes various physician staffing models. Staffing models include academic faculty physicians, private practice physicians, and various medical groups. A pluralistic model adds to the challenge as various groups have different characteristics related to reporting purposes. This project will be useful to other medical librarians who are increasingly asked to provide systematic reporting of scholarly output and impact to stakeholders including hospital administration, clinicians, medical departments and divisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer-reviewed publication
• publication analysis
• scholarly output

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank the staff of the Medical Education Department, and the staff of the Medical Library at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The author specifically wants to thank: Fozia Ferozali, Assistant Dean, Caroline Marshall, Senior Medical Librarian Public Services, Marilyn Shirk, Nursing Research and Development, Harriet Aronow, Nursing Research and Development, and Bernice Coleman, Nursing Research and Development, all at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.