Call for Proposals for I-O Graduate Program Rankings

Nicholas P. Salter, Joseph A. Allen, Allison S. Gabriel, David Sowinski, and Loren Naidoo

Don’t forget: We are seeking proposals for rankings of graduate programs.  Please refer to the original Call for Proposals (TIP; July 2016) for more details and see below for answers to some questions we have received.  As a brief reminder, we are seeking proposals for new and unique methodologies for ranking I-O PhD and MA/MS programs that reflect the diversity of values and strengths across the field of I-O. Multiple ranking methodology submissions will be accepted for publication, resulting in multiple rankings featured in an upcoming issue of TIP.  We have developed this call in consultation with the TIP editor, in response to a need for more comprehensive and updated information about graduate programs.

Submission Guidelines

We are seeking two-page submissions that describe briefly the proposed ranking methodology.  Specifically, the first page should explain the criteria to be ranked, as well as the rationale for including them and the specific measures used.  This should also include a timeline detailing when each step of the plan will be executed.  The second page of the submission should provide information about who is on the author team as well as their qualifications related to successfully executing the proposal.  Successful proposals will clearly define how they plan to rank I-O programs as well as the overarching aims/goals that such a ranking would achieve. 

Proposals are due to Nicholas Salter nsalter@ramapo.edu by October 15, 2016.  Authors should expect to hear back acceptance decisions by November 15, 2016, and the final reports are due November 15, 2017.  We note that our goal is to promote open scientific practices in TIP. As such, authors should agree to make their data available to others as requested.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can submit a proposal?  Must it be an individual or can it be a team?  Can grad students submit?  Must the submitter be an academic or can practitioners submit?

• Proposals can be submitted by faculty, graduate students, practitioners, or a combination. We are completely open to the composition of the teams, and given that we will ask for a write-up of findings, we are hoping that the teams look quite different. Our only requirement is that at least one member of the team be a member of SIOP (this can include Student Affiliates).

The traditional graduate program rankings primarily (though not exclusively) focus on publications and presentations as criteria, which is important.  Can we propose to look at these criteria as an update?

• Publications, presentations, and other traditional program ranking criteria are important factors to consider. Therefore, we do welcome a proposal to update rankings based on this.  That said, we have a particular interest in novel, and perhaps more difficult, criteria to capture.  Therefore, we especially encourage individuals and teams to propose nontraditional methodologies for ranking.  By doing so, we hope to capture some of the intangible qualities of programs that are no less important.

Are nontraditional criteria practical?  For instance, job placement of graduates might be really important, but those data aren’t easily accessible, and you’d have to survey every grad program to get their data on graduates.

• We agree. Some of these criteria may be very difficult to obtain!  However, some of the more difficult metrics might end up being really important. Also, these questions come up with every research study: measure something easy, or measure something hard? After the project is completed, a discussion of these issues (and possible limitations) will be included in the published TIP write up.  Additionally we can help on our end in the following ways:

• Encouraging programs to participate
• Reaching out to department chairs to be open about this information
• Consolidating efforts wherever possible (e.g., if two teams want to know about grad student placement, one team can ask and share with the other team)
• Splitting up some of the effort and sharing data across teams

We are happy to coordinate these efforts in order to make it as easy of a process as possible for everyone!

What if I have an idea for an interesting way to rank programs, but I would not be able to actually conduct the ranking in the next year.  Can I just propose a methodology but not actually conduct it?

• You are absolutely welcome to propose an idea.  However, at this time, we are most interested in individuals and teams who will be able to conduct the ranking.  Please consider this before submitting a proposal.

Where can I go for more ideas of nontraditional criteria to consider?

• In addition to the ideas we included in the original Call for Proposals, check out “Scholarly Impact: A Pluralist Conceptualization” (Academy of Management Learning & Education, Aguinis, Shapiro, Antonacopoulou, & Cummings, 2014) for a discussion of this topic.  You can access the article online for free here: http://www.hermanaguinis.com/AMLE2014.pdf

I have an idea I would like to propose, but I could use some help identifying a team to help me carry out the proposal.  Can you help me?

• Absolutely!  One hope we have for this is that we will have some overlapping ideas that can be brought together in a meaningful way.  Please submit your proposal and then we will help make connections across proposals where there is a need or where things seems to fit together.

Let’s say I submit a proposal and TIP wants the completed project.  After providing a write-up for TIP, could I use the data for my own other research purposes?

• Yes, sort of.  The general rule of thumb about data is that it should not be published twice.  So, whatever variables are presented in the final TIP article would be “used up” and should not appear in other work.  However, if, in the process of carrying out a proposal, additional data is collected for use at a later date, then go for it!