Research? (June 21, 2008)

In my first post I mentioned that professor’s job responsibilities include teaching, research, and service. My second post discussed the complexities of teaching and the last post discussed service.

As far as research goes, the requirements differ from university to university. Most universities require faculty to conduct research and publish their findings in academic journals or conference proceedings. These papers must be peer reviewed, meaning that three to six faculty members at other universities review your work and find no significant flaws. Trust me, it's harder than it sounds. Some faculty reject your work if it differs from their work, others set the bar either too high or too low, and still others don't seem even to read a paper before critiquing it.

Furthermore, there are other ways of gauging research. Some universities require you to publish in your field only, others place more weight on single author papers or on being first author on multi author papers, others prefer publications in only the most highly regarded journals and actually have a journal ranking system, and still others prefer large numbers of publications regardless of the outlet. And proceedings count less than journal pubs. And there are levels of proceedings as well. Generally international proceedings are preferred over national proceedings, which are preferred over regional proceedings. And of course some conferences are more prestigious than others, and are often rated by their "acceptance rate", with those that accept a smaller percentage of submitted papers deemed to be more selective and therefore "better." And then there are grants, in which you secure funding for you research projects. Bringing money into a university is always a good thing.

Not all universities require the same level of research productivity. Some universities are considered teaching universities, some are research universities, and some are a combination. Research universities generally require a a greater number of publications in "A" journals in order for a professor to receive tenure, but professors at those unis only teach two courses. Professors at teaching institutions have reduced research expectations (or in some cases no research requirements whatsoever) but they are expected to teach four or five classes. ISU is a combination teaching and research institution, and professors generally teach three classes and have fairly reasonable research expectations. More later...