Moneyball and Faculty Rankings

Paul Caron

How are scholars ranked for promotion, tenure and honors? How can we improve the quantitative tools available for decision makers when making such decisions? Can we predict the academic impact of scholars and papers at early stages using quantitative tools?
Current academic decisions (hiring, tenure, prizes) are mostly very subjective. In the era of “Big Data,” a solid quantitative set of measurements should be used to support this decision process.