Publication timing when year of final publication matters most?

[futureapppsy2]

(This is the academic equivalent of an RVU discussion, I guess! )

My college/department has a merit system where we're rated 1-5 (5 being best) in teaching, research, and service each calendar year, and the area ratings are then weighted and averaged based on the FTE we have in each area. Each area has maybe 10 or so different ratings (e.g., for research, they are the number of pubs, number of first-author pubs, number of citations, grant funding, grant apps submitted/scored, research awards, etc), and the top two scores are averaged to determine your score in that area (e.g., if you got a 4 in citations and a 5 in number of publications, your research merit score is 4.5). Some areas cap out before 5. This is truly a better system than our old system, which was literally the department head giving everyone ratings based on... who knows, vibes, I guess?

One thing about the publication metrics is that its based solely on the year in which a publication is in its final, paginated form (not year accepted or year published OnlineFirst, etc). That means that your 2014 rating, which affects your 2015 pay, is mostly based on articles that were actually accepted in 2013. It also means that articles that get published in a given calendar year mean nothing for merit in any year if you already hit the ceiling for publication number (typically 8 for pubs, 7 for first-author pubs) that year. This creates a weird system where we have to try to game when our publications will be published based on the in press time of a given journal, etc., and it stresses me out every year, especially if an article gets published earlier than expected when I've already hit the ceiling or later than expected if I was counting that as likely contributing to the year before's count.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to work within this system efficiently? Obviously, the simplest answer is to publish way above the ceiling each year, but frankly, that's hard to do while maintaining high publication quality, increasing grant productivity, and doing the increasing amounts of service expected of tenured faculty, etc., and also having any semblance of a life.

Thanks!

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[Pragma]

(This is the academic equivalent of an RVU discussion, I guess! )

My college/department has a merit system where we're rated 1-5 (5 being best) in teaching, research, and service each calendar year, and the area ratings are then weighted and averaged based on the FTE we have in each area. Each area has maybe 10 or so different ratings (e.g., for research, they are the number of pubs, number of first-author pubs, number of citations, grant funding, grant apps submitted/scored, research awards, etc), and the top two scores are averaged to determine your score in that area (e.g., if you got a 4 in citations and a 5 in number of publications, your research merit score is 4.5). Some areas cap out before 5. This is truly a better system than our old system, which was literally the department head giving everyone ratings based on... who knows, vibes, I guess?

One thing about the publication metrics is that its based solely on the year in which a publication is in its final, paginated form (not year accepted or year published OnlineFirst, etc). That means that your 2014 rating, which affects your 2015 pay, is mostly based on articles that were actually accepted in 2013. It also means that articles that get published in a given calendar year mean nothing for merit in any year if you already hit the ceiling for publication number (typically 8 for pubs, 7 for first-author pubs) that year. This creates a weird system where we have to try to game when our publications will be published based on the in press time of a given journal, etc., and it stresses me out every year, especially if an article gets published earlier than expected when I've already hit the ceiling or later than expected if I was counting that as likely contributing to the year before's count.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to work within this system efficiently? Obviously, the simplest answer is to publish way above the ceiling each year, but frankly, that's hard to do while maintaining high publication quality, increasing grant productivity, and doing the increasing amounts of service expected of tenured faculty, etc., and also having any semblance of a life.

Thanks!

I guess if I was in a similar situation, I would probably look at various publishers, the situation with reviewers, and conclude that there is a lot that is out of my control. I would probably just keep doing the next right thing (publish the thing when you should) because we're scientists, so why hold up findings if we are doing meaningful work? I can't imagine it is an enormous pay difference between 5 and 7 pubs in a given year, is it? Just my thoughts after some years on the hamster wheel.

 

[PsychPhDone]

(This is the academic equivalent of an RVU discussion, I guess! )

My college/department has a merit system where we're rated 1-5 (5 being best) in teaching, research, and service each calendar year, and the area ratings are then weighted and averaged based on the FTE we have in each area. Each area has maybe 10 or so different ratings (e.g., for research, they are the number of pubs, number of first-author pubs, number of citations, grant funding, grant apps submitted/scored, research awards, etc), and the top two scores are averaged to determine your score in that area (e.g., if you got a 4 in citations and a 5 in number of publications, your research merit score is 4.5). Some areas cap out before 5. This is truly a better system than our old system, which was literally the department head giving everyone ratings based on... who knows, vibes, I guess?

One thing about the publication metrics is that its based solely on the year in which a publication is in its final, paginated form (not year accepted or year published OnlineFirst, etc). That means that your 2014 rating, which affects your 2015 pay, is mostly based on articles that were actually accepted in 2013. It also means that articles that get published in a given calendar year mean nothing for merit in any year if you already hit the ceiling for publication number (typically 8 for pubs, 7 for first-author pubs) that year. This creates a weird system where we have to try to game when our publications will be published based on the in press time of a given journal, etc., and it stresses me out every year, especially if an article gets published earlier than expected when I've already hit the ceiling or later than expected if I was counting that as likely contributing to the year before's count.

Does anyone have any ideas of how to work within this system efficiently? Obviously, the simplest answer is to publish way above the ceiling each year, but frankly, that's hard to do while maintaining high publication quality, increasing grant productivity, and doing the increasing amounts of service expected of tenured faculty, etc., and also having any semblance of a life.

Thanks!

How much does it affect your pay?

 

[futureapppsy2]

I guess if I was in a similar situation, I would probably look at various publishers, the situation with reviewers, and conclude that there is a lot that is out of my control. I would probably just keep doing the next right thing (publish the thing when you should) because we're scientists, so why hold up findings if we are doing meaningful work? I can't imagine it is an enormous pay difference between 5 and 7 pubs in a given year, is it? Just my thoughts after some years on the hamster wheel.

How much does it affect your pay?

Really hard to tell--beyond the department level, the merit process is incredibly opaque. It is sometimes recalculated after the fact to "normalize" scores between departments and is combined with "Dean's merit" (which as far as I can tell is just vibes still) in some unclear way and a number we're never told gets spit out and you eventually find out what it probably was next time OSP prepares a grant budget for you.

 

[ClinicalABA]

From an OBM perspective, you have contingencies that that you cannot clearly identify with a very long latency between the response and any consequence. It is a very inefficient system and any expectation that you would be able to function efficiently within it is faulty. From what I can tell from your posts and published works, you will function productively despite it rather than efficiently because of it. If only the designers of said system had a basic knowledge of the equation in my signature!

 

[calimich]

Our college is struggling with a similar issue -- our version is, "how do we quantify scholarship as part of total workload & compensation?" Do process and product count differently? We know research takes time, and even with best effort, things go wrong, delays happen. Posters vs. pubs. Prestige of journal. Citation count. Involving students. Do these things matter? And what about the performing arts?
Teaching and service are much more easily defined and measured and changes are being piloted this year.

We considered merit pay, and it didn't have much support. For scholarship, we seem to be settling on "slow and steady good faith progress", perhaps with ~3 year window, with more structure & support for non-tenured folks. In classic academic style we've decided to delay changes and continue discussions.

I agree with ABA, keep doing what you've been doing, and even consider slowing the pace.

 

[ClinicalABA]

...
I agree with ABA, keep doing what you've been doing, and even consider slowing the pace.

Just a point of clarification- I did not recommend this. If I were to recommend anything it would be for them to immediately STOP what they're doing, move a 1000 or so miles north and work with me. That being unlikely- yeah, they should continue to do what they've been doing, probably slowing the pace.

 

[Ollie123]

In the end, I think you have too little control over the various processes. Trying to game a system like this would be utterly maddening. I can easily envision in a situation in which you deliberately submit to a couple rapid-publish journals to try and hit quota for a given year, get rejected from all because a random reviewer decides your study isn't interesting because it doesn't have metabolomics, end up with the only option being a journal with an exceptionally long lag time so you try and crank out another paper extra-fast to submit to a different journal and make up for it, that gets accepted but then they decide to hold for a special issue the following calendar year. Or you write something and it sits with a collaborator for 3 months who won't sign off on it and you can't submit. etc. The list of things that can go wrong is never-ending.

If we're keeping with a behaviorist theme, let's step away from pigeon-in-a-box behaviorism and jump to a modern approaches that integrate deeper assessments of values. Are you generally compensated well enough for the life that you want? Are you performing so poorly you are in danger of being fired? If the answers are yes and no, respectively, I would probably just keep doing my thing and let the chips fall where they may. I have little interest in jumping through various rings of fire to try and get a 3% versus a 2.5% salary increase (or whatever it is) at this stage in my life. I also think you are as likely to hurt yourself as you are to help yourself trying to game this system. I know if I sat on a finished paper for 6 months to try and bump it into the next performance review and then didn't get it accepted, my negative self-talk and self-blame would be much worse then if I just forged ahead with getting it out sooner.

TLDR - Don't artificially try to usurp control of a situation like this, as it just gives you an excuse to blame yourself when things outside your control screw it up. Get tenure, live life on your terms, re-evaluate if it gets hard to afford your mortgage or food.