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The two aims of this study were to: 1) identify the 100 most impactful contributors to English-language gerontological journals, and 2) map their respective disciplinary affiliations to help illuminate the perspectives shaping gerontological discourse. Toward that end, we conducted a secondary data analysis of a publicly available database of the world's leading scientists. After extracting all scientists in the gerontological category, we rank ordered them according to a composite measure of scholarly impact that controls for self-citations and author order while also calculating other bibliometric statistics. Disciplinary affiliations were assigned based upon the Classification of Instructional Programs codes developed by the National Center for Education Statistics at the United States Department of Education. The results reveal the mean contributor to the gerontological literature published 241.15 (SD = 203.95) papers and – after correcting for self-citations – had an h-index of 50.05 (SD = 25.00), and an hm-index 23.67 (SD = 7.50). A diverse array of professional affiliations characterized the contributors with a plurality being located in the health professions category, followed by the biological and biomedical science, and social sciences categories. The results reveal that gerontology is home to some of the world's leading scientists. Leveraging their expertise can help advance the field's collective knowledge development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identified the 100 most impactful global contributors to religion journals and mapped their respective disciplinary affiliations. To conduct this investigation, we performed a secondary data analysis of a Scopus-derived database featuring the world's leading scientists. The mean contributor published 51.93 papers, had an h-index of 13.57, and an hm-index 11.50. Most contributors were located in the USA with the most common disciplinary affiliations being religion, non-specialized (n = 22), sociology, non-specialized (n = 21), sociology of religion (n = 20), and theology (n = 11). The results reveal that religion discourse is populated by some of the leading scholars in the world. Leveraging their expertise can help advance the field's knowledge development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similar to trends in postsecondary education across the world, today's US universities are an increasing mix of native and foreign-born scholars. US institutions are experiencing a growing number of international faculty members, but there is limited literature examining foreign-born faculty who work in US institutions and how outputs from foreign-born faculty compare to US-born natives. Using data from the 2004 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:04), this study examines difference in faculty members' research productivity at doctoral-granting institutions by foreign/US-born status controlling for select individual and institutional characteristics. Findings show that foreign-born faculty members spend more time on research and less time on undergraduate instruction than US-born peers, and this may contribute to their higher levels of production. Implications are discussed that consider how to ensure diverse faculty communities that lead to strong research and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined the differences between international and U.S. citizen faculty members’ productivity in the areas of research, graduate and undergraduate teaching, and service at research universities in the United States. Utilizing the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:04) data set, we used a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to address the primary research questions in the study. The results indicated that international faculty members were significantly more productive in research, but less productive in teaching and service than their U.S. citizen colleagues. The study can potentially aid policymakers and university administrators to not only better serve and support international faculty members but also to fully utilize them as a resource that benefits the institution and the students in all functions of their work and not just in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To grow and prosper in an era when university departments are increasingly assessed comparatively and critically by national systems of accountability and ranking, planning schools need data that reflect the wide range of activities undertaken by planning educators. Recent developments surrounding planning school assessment in U.S. planning schools are considered in light of the history of university unit performance measurement internationally, and suggestions are made for development of a robust system of planning school assessment that includes the breadth of academic planners' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As state budget allocations for higher education decrease, "specialty" programs such as gerontology must continually demonstrate their productivity. State and private universities increasingly rely on student credit hours (SCH) or tuition generated, which is making it difficult for many gerontology programs to expand. The School of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida has achieved a 236% increase in annual SCH productivity over the past 5 years by methods including qualifying courses for university liberal arts requirements, and designing and cross-listing interdisciplinary courses. This increased productivity has supported program expansion and led to beneficial outreach to students from diverse majors. doi:10.1300/J021v28n01_03 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]