Investigating the AAU Citations Admission Criterion and the History of Papers, Citations and Impact at USF

This research sought to determine which factors relate to higher and lower production of papers, citations and impacts (citations divided by papers), because this is one of the AAU Phase I Indicators and to serve as guiding principles as The University of South Florida (USF) works toward becoming an AAU institution. The time period under consideration regarding citations was from 1981 through 2005. In order to assess the relationship between various possible causal factors and citation productivity, comparisons among AAU and non-AAU institutions were conducted. All institutions investigated were classified as Research Extensive under the 2000 Carnegie system, which produced a sample of 150 schools. The following points emerge from these analyses: (1) It appears to require between 11 and 16 years for the average article to mature regarding citations impact. (2) The best simple predictors of citation productivity are post doctorates, federal research expenditures, national academy members, total research expenditures and core revenues. (3) The strongest influence on citations is the percent of research conducted in biological and health sciences disciplines. The broad discipline areas of biological and health sciences, and other physical sciences and mathematics generate 80.5% of all U.S. papers, and 89.7% of all U.S. citations. (4) Over time, USF exhibits generally upward trends relative to all other institutions on citation productivity, however, the gap between USF and AAU institutions has not lessened during the time under consideration, except with regards to paper impact, where USF reached AAU levels by 1993. However, USF produces far fewer papers than the average AAU institution. (5) Carnegie rankings exhibit a one-to-one relationship with funding, which associates with larger faculty numbers and greater research productivity in the form of published papers and citations. (6) AAU institutions average between two times and five times as many National Academy Members and Faculty Award winners as non-AAU Very High research institutions. (7) AAU institutions exhibit a 54% advantage over non-AAU Very High public research institutions for research expenditures per faculty member. (8) Both AAU and non-AAU Very High research institutions have about 30% of their expenditures coming from undependable grant-based funding. However, for USF this percentage was 42%. (9) Compared to Big East, SUS and Strategic Plan Peers, USF and other SUS institutions have lower tuition than other peer groups. To summarize, during the past 25 years, USF has generally been moving in the direction of AAU institutions, however, as Birnbaum (2007) notes: "...'world-class' has increasingly come to be synonymous with 'Western.' That means science, research, and lots of money..." The basic factor influencing citation productivity appears to be funding, with AAU institutions having a substantial advantage over non-AAU Very High and High Research institutions. The following are appended: (1) AAU Membership Indicators and Definitions; and (2) Tables 5 and 6. (Contains 9 figures, 6 tables, and 6 footnotes.) [This report represents an Internal Technical Report, Office of Planning and Analysis, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida]