Information and Library Science MPACT: A Preliminary Analysis
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Dissertation advising is an important form of mentoring. To investigate the impact of dissertation advising over time, advisor and committee member names were collected for 2400 dissertations completed over a 40-year period (1964–2004) in 32 North American information and library science schools. Several mentoring impact metrics are reported for a subset of the data, including the number of dissertations advised, the number of dissertation committees served on, the ratio of advising to committee membership, and the fractional “mpact” that weights advising and committee membership. The subset consists of data for six schools that produced at least three dozen dissertations and for which complete data is available. The data and resulting “mpact” metrics offer new ways to assess faculty impact and to investigate the nature and growth of a field.
Publication Info
Published in Library and Information Science Research, Volume 28, Issue 4, Winter 2006, pages 480-500.