New indices in scholarship assessment

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly Communication
• Pharmacy Education

Background:

• Faculty research and scholarship are crucial for academic institutions.
• Accreditation processes, such as those by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, increasingly incorporate scholarship assessment.
• Traditional methods of assessment may not fully capture the scope of modern scholarly output.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review and describe emerging quantitative indices for assessing faculty research and scholarship.
• To highlight newer metrics beyond traditional citation counts.
• To provide an overview of tools potentially useful for academic assessment.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of recently described scholarship metrics.
• Identification and categorization of novel bibliometric indices.
• Analysis of the potential applicability and limitations of these new metrics.

Main Results:

• Several new indices for faculty scholarship assessment have been described, including the h-index, m-quotient, g-index, h(2) index, a-index, m-index, r-index, ar index, and creativity index.
• The h-index and m-quotient are identified as metrics likely to gain significant traction in the near future.
• The review acknowledges the existence of various quantitative measures for scholarly impact.

Conclusions:

• Emerging quantitative metrics offer new ways to assess faculty research and scholarship.
• The h-index and m-quotient show promise for widespread adoption in academic evaluations.
• Despite advancements in quantitative metrics, qualitative peer review by experienced academicians is indispensable for comprehensive scholarship assessment.