8) Expectations on Productivity

8.1 Publishing

WEG members strive to be highly productive. The general minimum expectations are:

Master’s thesis: 1–2 journal papers, 2–3 conference papers/posters/ presentations
PhD Dissertation: 3–5 journal papers, 6+ conference papers/posters/ presentations

All graduate students should be presenting at least twice annually after their ﬁrst year. Every other year should include some international travel, specifically for PhD students. It is also expected that students will work with the WEG DET (Digital Education Team) to make a video abstract for each peer-reviewed journal paper they publish. While the WEG DET will do the editing, ﬁlming, etc., the student who is lead author for the paper needs to be in charge of drafting the video script, which will go through a few rounds of editing and revisions with Dr. Webber. In addition, where possible, students should write op-eds, blog entries, or general interest articles as companion pieces for their peer-reviewed articles. If the research isn’t relevant enough to society to be worthy of a general interest article, then it might be worth re-examining the scope and intent of the research.

8.2 Goal Setting

Dr. Webber likes quantitative goal setting whenever possible and is interested in your personal and professional development as well as your academic development. Short- and long-term goal setting is useful, and strong metrics are important to measure progress. Every group member is expected to meet with Dr. Webber in August to discuss goals for the year.

Goals should be speciﬁc, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented.
It is important to keep records of your goals. Keep a multi-year record of written goals to track trends and identify goals that are persistently identiﬁed but NOT met.
Written down goals are better than goals that are not written down.
Goals should be realistic. If goals are too high, it is easy to get disappointed if you do not meet them. If goals are too low, it is easy to get self-satisﬁed without pushing yourself.
Use diﬀerent timescales (1 year, 5 year, etc).
Make goals with your spouse.
Goals are less important than goal-setting (plans are worthless, but planning is priceless).