What criteria are used to evaluate research in academia?

[jtbell]

I'd better add that a "college" as described in my preceding post should not be confused with a "community college", which is a very different kind of beast that doesn't even offer bachelor's degrees.

And that both of these are basically American institutions. I think colleges of the American type are pretty much unknown elsewhere in the world. Community colleges might have equivalents (sort of) in some kinds of vocational schools, or some kind of intermediate school between secondary school and university.

 

[ShayanJ]

Back in my student days (1970s and early 1980s): a "university" was a (usually) large institution that offered both undergraduate degrees and graduate degrees through the Ph.D., and performed a significant amount of research; whereas a "college" was a small institution (1000-2000 students) that offered only or mainly undergraduate degrees, possibly with a few masters degree programs, and focused on teaching.

(I did my bachelor's degree at a college with about 1000 students total, all undergraduates; then did my Ph.D. at U of Michigan with over 40000 students, including graduate students. Big difference!)

Nowadays the lines are a bit blurred, because many of those small schools have added masters-level programs, usually specialized ones such as business or nursing or other health-related areas, and have "upgraded" their names. Over the past 30 years, many of the nearby competitors of the college where I work have changed their names from "xxx College" to "xxx University." However, their main focus is still teaching, not research. I still think of these as "colleges" even with their new names.

At either kind of school, a Ph.D. (or other terminal degree, in certain fields) is normally required for a tenure-track position. My college has sometimes hired people for tenure-track positions who were "ABD" (all but dissertation), with the expectation that they would finish their dissertation and Ph.D. within a couple of years. At least a couple of them had to leave when they didn't actually finish their Ph.D.

University professors are usually evaluated for tenure and promotion mainly on the basis of their research. College professors are evaluated more on the basis of their teaching; their research has gotten more important than it used to be, but mainly as a way to provide research experience for students. The exact balance between teaching and research varies from one school to another, though. Some elite colleges (e.g. Williams or Swarthmore) have fairly high expectations for research.

Nice explanation. Just to make it complete, what are the criteria in evaluating one's research? I mean, is it # of papers? # of citations? h-index? or what?