Tom Sanchez

The 659 urban planning faculty with Google Scholar Citation Profiles (as of 12/8/2019) list 29,398 publications, an average of about 45 publications per faculty member (publications were only counted once even though approximately 2,000 were co-authored with other planning faculty). All publications currently average 44 citations (median of 10) for a total of 1,295,160 citations. The chart below shows the interquartile range (IQR) of citations for these publications by year. For most years the 25th quartile averages about 3 and the 75th quartile averages about 34. The highest two years are for publications in 1997 and 2003 (average of 64). The most highly cited publication among these is Regional Advantage by AnnaLee Saxenian with 13,247.

IQR of Citation Totals for Publications by Year

See also the updated urban planning program citation analysis and searchable database. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated (tom.sanchez@vt.edu).

The table below includes the most recent update of urban planning faculty citation activity. Also see the searchable database at: http://scholarmetrics.com/

The citation data for my analyses are primarily from Google Scholar (see most recent at: http://tomwsanchez.com/2019-urban-planning-faculty-citation-results/). For awhile now I have suspected that planning faculty with Google Scholar Citation Profiles had higher H-Indices and citation totals, but I had not yet looked at the differences. I assumed that highly cited faculty were more likely to keep track of their citation metrics, and therefore have GS profiles. This appears to be the case. But in my opinion, profiles do not increase the visibility of publications and therefore, citation activity. Publications are mostly searched through GS and not through profiles. There is also the issue of gaming GS profiles by including erroneous publications. While I have seen instances of this, most of it has to do with profiles not being properly maintained. This also includes missing publications which potentially lower citation counts and H-Indices. Anne-Wil Harzing has a very good blog post about this at: https://harzing.com/blog/2018/11/google-scholar-citation-profiles-the-good-the-bad-and-the-better.

See the comparisons below (by rank) and please send me your comments.

Table 1. Mean H-Index

Table 2. Mean citations

Figure 1. Mean H-Index by rank

Figure 2. Mean citations by rank

The following summarizes citation activity and H-Index levels for faculty in urban planning programs in the U.S. and Canada. This includes 293 assistant professors, 359 associate professors, and 450 full professors. Background on urban planning and citation analysis can be found at:

Sanchez, Thomas W. 2016. Faculty Performance Evaluation using Citation Analysis: An Update, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 37(1): 83-94.

Individual and program level data are searchable at: http://scholarmetrics.com/metrics

Using citation totals or averages for groups of scholars, especially academic programs, tends to favor larger and/or older faculties. A simple way to normalize program totals is factoring the number of total years of faculty experience for each (estimated by elapsed years since receiving terminal degree), and therefore, Total Citations / Total No. Years. In addition, squaring Total No. Years further controls for programs that are outliers in terms of faculty size or ages (older).

Compared to a previous top 10 listing of program citation levels (see: 2018 Urban Planning Citation Update), there are several noticeable differences. When normalizing by Total No. Years, Tufts, UBC, Minnesota, and McGill enter the top 10. And when, Total No. Years is squared it significantly changes the schools at the top with McGill, Tufts, UC Denver, Florida Atlantic, Minnesota, University of Pittsburgh, and San Jose State being included.

Your questions, comments, and suggestions are greatly appreciated.