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Apropros of the #criminology faculty productivity ranking flare-up happening on twitter, I should weigh in.
Once upon a time, I was editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. When my term expired, I wrote this in my 2011 farewell (1):
Once upon a time, I was editor of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. When my term expired, I wrote this in my 2011 farewell (1):
"I slowly, perhaps too slowly, developed an awareness of the complexities and dangers of research that ranks faculty and programs. Because our field has more than its share of narcissists, the articles are very eagerly read (and, as a result, eagerly written)." (2)
"But I do not think that we, as a discipline, sufficiently grasp how much these articles affect the careers and lives of our colleagues as well as the status of departments." (3)
"Because we often name names in research where we produce rankings, methodological mistakes now mean more than just embarrassment for the author, but humiliation and pain for those who were listed and should not have been, or who should have received credit..." (4)
"...for their achievements but didn’t. I began to hear upsetting stories of people, often untenured colleagues, left out of the rankings due to honest mistakes but whom nevertheless were put on the spot by supervisors who questioned their contributions to the field." (5)
"That the articles underwent a review was cold comfort; reviewers are not a guarantee against error. I then began to pay a lot more attention to departmental webpages trumpeting their grandness,..." (6)
"...as well as to individual colleagues who were aggressively exploiting productivity research for personal gain. It is natural enough for people to want to do this and I certainly cannot fault anyone for taking advantage, but inherent within this environment is a concern.." (7)
"...rather horrible to contemplate. Whenever money, prestige, and employment are at stake the natural conditions exist for someone to scheme to manipulate the research toward a desired outcome." (8)
"This is not an accusation but rather a foretelling of what inevitably will happen, and that we need to step back and reconsider what we’re doing." (9)
"All this points to the necessity of seeing our professional organizations, like the ACJS, weigh in on the ethics of research where we rank our peers or our units. My biggest regret as editor is that I didn’t take the lead on this earlier..." (10)
Obviously nobody read what I wrote back then. Or wanted to understand.
