They may be teaching throughout the year, but the professors of Auburn University's School of Communication and Journalism is still getting published.
The Communication Institute for Online Scholarship ranked the faculty of the University in the top 15 schools in the country for their amount of published research in the fields of communication and journalism in a recent survey of their online database of journalism and communication magazines ComAbstracts.
"One of the important things to keep in mind about this is what this says about the strength of the program overall," said Debra Worthington, associate professor of communication and journalism. "That means we're doing some good research and getting it published, otherwise we wouldn't be in this position or wouldn't be recognized the way that we are."
The results of the survey, published in the CIOS' fall 2013 newsletter, measured the total contribution of faculty members working in Ph.D. or M.A.-granting departments of communication and journalism.
Schools were ranked based on the amount of work published by faculty while employed at their university and found in the ComAbstracts database, regardless of when the author was employed or when the article was published.
To date, the ComAbstracts database contains approximately 74,000 articles culled from 140 journals dating back to 1915, assigning each identifiable co-author full credit for the article.
According to CIOS' newsletter, Auburn, along with George Washington University, American University and the University of Cincinnati, generated a record of accomplishment that places them not only above the mean of Ph.D.-granting programs but within range of the field's top 25 Ph.D. granting programs.
"It's great news because as a student you want to be proud of the department or the school that you're in," said Justin McLennan, senior in journalism. "You choose a school because you hope you're getting a quality education, and to hear that helps reinforce the decision you made and lets you know you made a good choice."
Despite the level of accomplishment present already, some insist the survey's decision to exclude works outside of scholarly magazine articles, such as books and films, detracts from an even greater recognition of contribution.
"I would say that it's nice but it's a little limited," said George Plasketes, professor of communication and journalism. "If you added books to that then we'd look even better."
However, the results are reported, the contributions of the School of Communication and Journalism toward the expansion of the public's knowledge cannot be understated.
"You don't just publish a whole bunch of stuff in a couple of years and get recognized like this," Worthington said. "You have to do it long term, and there's been a commitment to research here at our program and a commitment to getting that research published."
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