Tom Sanchez

The following is a summary of the 2015 citation analysis results for Urban Planning faculty in North America (mostly U.S.). The lists of urban planning departments and faculty were based on the 20^th Edition (2014-2015 academic year) Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Guide to Undergraduate and Graduate Education in Urban and Regional Planning. Results for 2013 and 2014 describe the methodology (click years to see previous analyses). A recent article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER) provides in-depth background on the objectives and overall approach (go to article).

Table 1 shows the top 25 planning schools based on the median number of Google Scholar citations per faculty member (this includes only departments with a minimum of 5 tenure-track faculty).  Also, see the department rankings by faculty tenure here.

Table 1

UCLA, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and NYU retain the top 4 spots, with the University of Minnesota moving up from last year to become the fifth most productive planning faculty. New to the top 25 in 2016 are Virginia Tech (19), the University of Pittsburgh (20), University of South Florida (22), and Cornell University (23). These rankings shift slightly from year to year based on changes in faculty rosters (through retirements, new additions, affiliation changes, etc.) ACSP membership, and data adjustments. Additionally, individual faculty citation counts increase each year at varying rates averaging 20-30 percent for tenured faculty (associate and full professors). The total number of citations for current urban planning faculty increased from just under 800,000 in 2014 to over 1,000,000 at the end of 2015. The top 25 cited urban planning faculty are shown in Table 2. The list contains a few changes, most notably the inclusion of Robert Bullard (14), now at Texas Southern University.

Table 2

The data also point to citation thresholds that emerge for the three ranks (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Full Professor). Figure 1 shows the mean and median values for each rank. The middle range of citations for Assistant Professors is about 70, with nearly 300 for Associate Professors, and just over 900 for Full Professors. This corresponds with median years of experience at 7, 15, and 30 years respectively. There is a significant amount of variation within each rank with years of experience (years since terminal degree was received) explaining only about 6 percent of the variation in individual citation activity. Related to my analysis posted in October 2015, there is no statistical difference in citation activity between female and male urban planning faculty for ACSP member schools.

Figure 1

*Note: A tool to query the data for individual faculty and departments will be available soon.

Among urban planning faculty in the U.S, who is cited more – men or women? My previous analyses compared schools, years of service, and academic rank (see 2014 Urban Planning Citation Analysis), and I thought it would be interesting to look at citation totals by gender. Others have examined these differences noting challenges faced by females due to discrimination and time-off for maternity leave (see for example Leahey, 2006; van Arensbergen, van der Weijden, & Van den Besselaar, 2012). Productivity and citation activity can also be impacted by taking on administrative roles, teaching and advising loads, and other appointments that effect the amount of time available for publishing. Unfortunately data about these activities were not available for individual planning faculty in my sample. The table below shows the median number of citations by rank and gender which includes 291 females and 623 males.

Median Number of Citations by Rank and Gender

Source: Google Scholar

The table shows that there are proportionally larger differences between males and females at the assistant and full professor ranks with slightly less difference for associate professors. However, a statistical test of median values comparing gender and rank suggests there is no significant difference (at 90% confidence level).

So who is cited more?  There appears to be no difference.

References

Leahey, E. (2006). Gender differences in productivity research specialization as a missing link. Gender & Society, 20(6), 754-780.

van Arensbergen, P., van der Weijden, I., & Van den Besselaar, P. (2012). Gender differences in scientific productivity: a persisting phenomenon? Scientometrics, 93(3), 857-868.