Welcome to the AANS online course, a webinar series on jumpstarting your academic career. My name is Dr. Michael C. Park, and I will be presenting this webinar titled Publications, Things to Remember. This course will show you the important role publications can play in your academic career. So you chose to go into academic neurosurgery. Many neurosurgery residents choose to go into academic practice or position for a variety of reasons. Since this course will deal with the aspect of academic neurosurgery after you have chosen that path, reasons for or against academic practice will not be discussed here. Choosing a specific academic position or job is complex. Reasons for choosing one position over another are varied. These are typically strengths or reputations of the department or institution that you're looking at, mentors, the subspecialty, research infrastructure, geographic preference, or salary or compensation, to name a few. Publications are probably the last item on anyone's mind. In some way, publications are an integral part of academia, but the exact role publications play is very important. So even if it was not a factor in choosing your position, which often it isn't, consider it and at least understand what role publications will play going forward. Therefore, consider publications if and when you select your position. If you're already in a position, it is also important to consider publications early in your career. How they will be measured and what role they will play in a promotion advancement is important. These points should be seriously considered or you should at least have a good understanding early in your career. So let us discuss the important role that publications will play in your academic career. How is it important? For institutions and departments, publications and publication track record are a good objective measure. It can be easily derived and easily compared. Therefore, it is a metric that is often used for determining the following. Compensation. Often publications are a requirement and is used as part of the formula for determining your compensation. This is more true for academic or faculty positions where academic productivity is just as important as clinical productivity. Promotion. As it is an objective measure of academic productivity, universities and departments use publication records when considering faculty members for promotions. Tenured versus non-tenured and research versus clinical positions may have varying formula or requirements when it comes to publications. Grant proposals. You have to keep in mind that publications are a good measure of research productivity. Therefore, when applying for a grant, it is an important part of your application. It is also a critical part of your profile such as NIH BioSketch. The productivity from your past grants will often influence the chances of obtaining future grants. Department standing. Many academic institutions and medical schools will use publication records in addition to grant dollars obtained for the department to determine the department standing or health of that department within the institution. This is also tied to department-directed bonuses or department-directed resources. Higher the standing in the institution, more support and funding the department will receive. Residency program standing. ACGME also keeps track of publication records of the faculty of that program to gauge the academic performance of the faculty members. These programs can be put on probation if the academic productivity of the teaching faculty is not up to par. Now that we know the importance of publications and the intricate role that it plays in many aspects of our academic career, we will need to understand how the publication metrics are determined. What are the rules? It is important to know the formula that your institution or department will use to evaluate your academic productivity based on your publications. What role will publications play in the overall measure of your academic productivity? Other considerations are presentation, awards, grant, funding, mentorship, outreach activities, administrative duties, etc. These rules differ from institution to institution and department to department, so it is important that you understand the rules, especially at the beginning of your academic career. These rules and policies are typically spelled out in the faculty manual or handbook and or promotion and tenure procedure. There are some established measurement tools or indexes that are often used. This list is by no means complete and your institution or department may have other ways of determining your productivity. Now let me first explain the H-Index or Hirsch Index. The H-Index or Hirsch Index is author-level metric that measures both productivity and citation impact of the publications. Maximum value of H is such that given author or journal that has published at least H number of papers that have each been cited at least H number of times. H-Index considers the number of publications and associated citation numbers at the same time. So, if the author has only one publication and at least one citation of that publication, his maximum index is 1. It cannot be greater than the number of publication. It can be cited 5 times, for example, but his index is 1. On the other hand, the author can have numerous publications, let's say 5, but only one citation each. The index is 1, although the maximum that can be reached is 5. So let's calculate 1 from an example. When author has 6 publications, A, B, C, D, E, F, for example, the number of citations are 10, 2, 5, 3, 4, and 4, respectively. What we do next is that we order the publications in the order of the number of citations from the largest to the lowest value. We then look for the last position, where the number of citations is greater than or equal to the position itself. This is the H-position. Here, the 4th publication has 4 citations, and the 5th has 3 citations. Therefore, the H-index is equal to 4. Now, the HFL-index is similar to the H-index, but only considers first and last authorship. Other measures are more straightforward, like total number of publications, first or last authorship numbers, total number of citations, and or first last author citations. Now that we know how publications can be measured, we can begin to see how it will impact your academic career. It is typically only part of the metrics used by the department to measure your academic productivity, which will then contribute to your overall productivity. Make sure that you understand, again, the formula that your department will use to measure your work. Know the rules beforehand and early in your career. So what's next? Well, it is important to understand how one can maximize the publication output. The devil is indeed in the detail, and you should consider these factors about your publications and associated academic activity in the following light. As always, you should consider the journal to which you want to submit your manuscript. Obviously, many of you are already familiar with these points, but it is important that you remember it, as it will ultimately impact your publication metric. The type of publication is important. Case studies or case reports carry a different weight than clinical or basic science research paper. It also can impact the acceptance rate. Consider the journal and audience of that journal. These are also related to the degree of difficulty getting manuscripts accepted. Impact factors could also be considered. In the end, get your published work where you can. Now that you know how authorship and the position in the list of authors are important, what should you consider? What's in a name or the order? Well, first authorship is important. When starting out early in your career, it is important to have more first author publications, as this implies that majority of the work is done by you. In many instances, being a first author is high or valuable factor in the metrics for measuring academic productivity. As your career matures, it is expected that you transition to more last author position as you become head of the lab or you are the PI. It also demonstrates that you are mentoring others. In many instances, last authorship is just as important, if not more, than first authorship. However, when starting out any project, grants, collaborations, or writing, make sure that you establish the authorship and the order of appearance on the manuscript at the beginning of the project with the involved parties. This is very important to establish at the start. This is a must and a good practice in general. So how will publications help? How will it help in your academic career? I think we ran over quite a bit of that, but you have to remember that it's only part of the formula, but a very important part. It shows your track record of academic productivity. This will impact your grant application or proposals, overall performance evaluation, and your compensation. It also impacts your promotion. We all want to improve and be recognized, and promotion is one way of doing that. Again, publication is only part of the picture when it comes to academic productivity, which will be measured during your evaluation for promotion. Promotion impacts your compensation, but also your standing in your department and your eligibility for leadership roles. Know which track you're in. There is a significant difference in expectations when it comes to tenured versus non-tenured tracks, for example. Non-tenured track requirements are more strict and often more difficult when it comes to promotion. Each individual institution or department will have their promotion policy. It is important that you understand the promotion process at the start of your career so you know what to expect, what to do, what to plan, and what to prepare. There are also less strict or more clinical tracks, so be aware of this, even though you are in an academic setting. Also know the time frame. It is also important how long it typically takes the faculty members to get promoted. Be aware of departments and institutions which do not promote their faculty in a timely manner or less often. Publications in an academic career is important in many aspects. I think many know this already now. Consider policy for academic productivity metrics and measurements, policy for promotion, and policy for compensation when considering academic position. Although some may not consider this as a high priority when considering an academic position, at least know the various policies before you begin your career in the institution or department of your choice. Thank you.

Publications

Academic career

Neurosurgery

Choosing an academic position

Publication metrics