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    Academic Placement Data and Analysis: First Steps

    Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) is a new, collaborative research project on placement into academic jobs in philosophy. The current project members include myself, Patrice Cobb (psychology, UC Merced), Angelo Kyrilov (computer science, UC Merced), David Vinson (cognitive science, UC Merced), and Justin Vlasits (philosophy, UC Berkeley). This project is borne out of earlier work on placement that was posted here and elsewhere over the past few years. Funding for this project by the American Philosophical Association has so far provided for the development of a website and database that can host the data for this project (thanks to the work of Angelo Kyrilov over the past two months). There are approximately 2300 total entries, with several categories of data. Most of these categories of data have been made publicly available, whereas any categories that have not been made public (e.g. name, gender, race/ethnicity) will be provided to researchers with IRB approval from their home institutions. You can see the website and database so far here: 

    placementdata.com

    This link will take you to a page that lists placements in order of graduating institution, and the entries are searchable by graduating institution. (Other categories will be searchable in the coming months.)

    The first main step of this project is to gather missing data from placement officers, department chairs, or other departmental representatives. Over the next 24 hours we will send emails to representatives of 169 philosophy departments (using 291 unique email addresses) that provide a custom link to a page with the data that we have for that department so far together with the option to edit those entries and to add new entries. (Note: these emails are coming from a project-specific email address: apda@ucmerced.edu. Placement officers may want to check their spam folders if they do not receive this email.) We hope that many of these departments are willing to participate in making this database as complete as possible. Our target date for this data collection effort is July 15th, 2015.

    Our next steps will be to 1) provide a form that anyone can use to update this placement data and 2) collect gender and race/ethnicity data from placed candidates. We hope to have completed these steps by August 1st, 2015. 

    We are committed to generating analyses and a placement report on this data by August 31st, 2015, which will be made publicly available on the website: placementdata.com. 

    Some decisions that we have made on this project so far include:

    1) Names: we decided to remove the names of placed candidates from the public data for reasons of privacy. Although the data we use are public (in the sense that placed candidates could have no reasonable expectation that the fact of their employment would be private information), the fact that it is gathered in one place may warrant extra precaution. 

    2) Gender, Race, and Ethnicity: we decided to request this information from placed candidates, rather than placement officers and department chairs, because we think that this category is best treated as self-determined and potentially private. (Unfortunately, we are not able to get this data from PhilJobs due to their consent clause, which prevents anyone outside of PhilJobs from accessing this data.)

    3) Areas of Specialization: we separated areas of specialization into History of Philosophy; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Science, Logic, and Mathematics; and Value Theory. We aim to use the PhilPapers taxonomy to categorize individual areas of specialization into these groups. 

    4) Appointment Type: we separated appointments into tenure-track (and equivalent) and temporary, with sub-headings for temporary appointments including postdoctoral, visiting, adjunct, and other appointments. 

    We had hoped to send out the above mentioned emails by June 15th, but I have been in India working with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative since June 8th, which has slowed us down some. (While in India, I was able to attend celebrations at Drepung in honor of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday, where I took some videos. You may enjoy this one of the youngest monks delivering lunch to everyone and this one of some traditional Tibetan chants, but note that visibility is poor in the latter video.) I should be back in the United States by June 25th and will have an easier time answering emails and approving comments at that point. 

    If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below or email them to apda@ucmerced.edu. 

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    14 responses to “Academic Placement Data and Analysis: First Steps”

    1. Derek Bowman Avatar
      Derek Bowman

      Will the survey include stipulated definitions for the definitions of the sub-headings for temporary appointments? The titles for these positions vary substantially by institution. For example, in the common usage “adjunct” is most often used to refer to an instructor who is hired, typically part-time, on a per-course basis. But at my current institution those with the title “Adjunct” are the equivalent of Visiting Assistant Professors at many other institutions, hired full-time for a limited renewable term. Would the people in those positions be classified as “adjuncts” or “visiting”? Would the term-by-term contract employees (“Special Lecturers”) be classified as “adjuncts” or “other appointments”?

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    2. Cian Dorr Avatar
      Cian Dorr

      In addition to funding this project, the APA and the PhilPapers Foundation are also gathering more or less the same information and integrating it into the PhilJobs-JFP appointments database. They too have recently sent emails to departmental representatives, inviting them to verify and complete an existing body of placement data. Since having both of these projects going in tandem will require the representatives to put in twice as much work to make sure the information is accurate, have you considered joining forces?

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    3. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      Our plan is to collect both position type and position title, where “type” is set by contract duration: permanent, multi-year, one-year, and semester-long contracts.
      Update: I reviewed our form and see that I am incorrect about the above. I must have lost track of changes made to the form. I will discuss with Angelo how to make this as clear as possible, but we are collecting information on placement into adjunct positions, currently under “fellowship/visiting.”

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    4. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      In short, yes, we did consider joining forces. I did not know that they sent out those emails, but I appreciate your letting me know. When PhilJobs heard that I would be sending out emails of this sort in April, they asked that we join forces, since they then did not have the resources to send out such emails themselves and also did not have the resources to incorporate the data that I would collect even if I made it available to them. In the end, I did not think that a collaboration was the right way to go this year, for various reasons.
      Relevant to those concerned about duplicating efforts may be the fact that public data collected by either of our groups will be shared with the other. However, non-public data collected by PhilJobs (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and anything else that is not viewable from the appointments page) can only be accessed by PhilJobs, due to their consent clause (at least, this was the case the last time I spoke with them, in April 2015). This is one main reason that I did not want to collect data on their behalf–it is not data that can be made available to researchers outside of PhilJobs, and it seems important to me to make such data available to researchers. Good research depends, I think, on this type of openness. As is stated in the APDA consent form sent to placement officers and department chairs yesterday, any data collected by APDA will be made available to those with IRB approval for such research. I think that PhilJobs does not have IRB approval as of yet, but if they obtain such approval I will be able to share all of the data I collect with them. I would do my best to make it available in a form that is easy for them to incorporate into PhilJobs. As I say above, I think this is an important thing for us to do.
      Another concern I had was with the copyright on PhilJobs–at the time of our discussions, the website said that it was held by David Chalmers and David Bourget and also said that no one could use the information contained in their database without permission. I felt that this copyright was too strong for what is public data and did not like the idea that (in my impression) control of that information would be in the hands of two individuals. In fact, in my discussions with them they offered only the already public data in exchange for APDA both sending out emails on their behalf and also agreeing not to collect any other data from placed candidates. This seemed to me an unreasonable request and it was only after considerable discussion that they consented to let APDA use the already public information for research even if we did not agree to these terms (but not “as a machine-readable data feed”–we had to copy and paste). We did not want to agree to these terms because we felt that it would prevent us from developing a complete database, including information on gender, ethnicity/race, and sexuality, since this information could not be made available by PhilJobs. If I had known about their copyright notice and consent clause in 2014, I would not have promoted this service in lieu of my own collection of placement data.
      Finally, I was concerned that PhilJobs was not a database that could be used for research due to quality issues. From what I could tell, they did not have IRB approval to collect data for research, the university labels were inconsistent (i.e. searching for a university would not turn up everyone in the database associated with that university), and many entries were incorrect (around 100 were found to be incorrect when checked manually by Angelo Kyrilov, in trying to incorporate their data).
      All of that said, I think that PhilJobs is an excellent service and I am glad that it is available. It is very useful for announcing these appointments, which is I think its primary purpose. I do not, however, think it is ready for research just yet. I do hope that more changes are made to make all of the collected information available to researchers outside of PhilJobs, because I think that would be best for our profession. Until then, I feel compelled to collect information about placement separately from that effort.
      In case you are interested, these are the conditions that I put forward on April 23rd for collaboration between our efforts, verbatim (to David Chalmers):
      “1) complete, unfiltered access to the data by researchers, without decisions on which data to restrict being made exclusively by yourself or David Bourget, and restrictions only given when absolutely necessary for reasons of privacy in consultation with an IRB board, or other experts on the matter.
      2) copyright on the data being open access, making it clear that it is intended for public use (perhaps with attribution), and not held by either yourself or David Bourget, but by the APA or some representative of the APA. ”
      As far as I know, these conditions have not yet been met. Until they are, again, all public information will be shared by our groups, but other information may not be.

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    5. Dan Hicks Avatar
      Dan Hicks

      Reading through this post, it’s a little unclear what the target population is here. Clicking through to placementdata.com, I see what looks to be data on PhD holders who were offered and accepted academic positions. But for many inferences that we might want to draw from this database, we would also need to know about (a) people who didn’t finish their PhD, (b) job-hunters who were not offered academic positions, (c) job-hunters who accepted positions in government or industry, and so on. For example, if we want to draw conclusions like (to make up an example) “it’s easier to find a job in ethics than in philosophy of science,” we need to know how many people were applying for jobs in ethics, not just how many people accepted job offers in ethics.
      Also, will individuals with database entries have the opportunity to correct our public data? For instance, I have two AOSs (philosophy of science and social/political). My entry in the table shows only one of those two.

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    6. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      Hi Dan! You are right to point out the importance of data beyond this set. We are planning to expand our collection in some ways relevant to your first point, and I aim to make an announcement about this next week. As for the second point, we aim to allow individuals to correct their own placement records in the coming weeks. I will make an announcement about that feature when it is ready. Thank you for your comments!

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    7. William Blattner Avatar
      William Blattner

      There is a significant oversight in the the form uses to collect information, both by the APA and by Phil Jobs. This is an issue that I have raised with Prof. Jennings in prior correspondence, and I believe it warrants attention from the APA and Phil Jobs.
      Our program has a long history of producing PhDs who do not aim to enter the academic job market in philosophy, but rather have their eyes focused on non-academic jobs for which the PhD in Philosophy is indispensable. As examples of the sorts of jobs in question, I refer you to the careers of Elisa Hurley (http://www.primr.org/board/bios/#hurley), Emily Evans (http://www.pcori.org/people/emily-evans-phd-mph), and Laura Guidry-Grimes (http://lauragg.com/). Of course, we also produce PhDs who do enter the job market. It is critical to an accurate representation of the success of our program that there be a way to reflect these PhDs in the database. If we omit them from the database, then we both underrepresent the size of our program and undersell the success of the training we offer. If we include them in the database, but have no way to list their jobs (e.g., the binaries junior/senior, tenure-track/non, research/teaching, etc., do not apply to such jobs), then we misrepresent what our graduates do. We have also had a number of graduates of our program move immediately into positions in academic administration or instructional support, sometimes as their primary goal, sometimes as a better solution to the challenges that confront supporting a family, raising children, or finding a life that suits one’s personal temperament.
      I should think that in a time of increased pressure on the profession and shrinking of the pool of tenure-track jobs available to PhDs in philosophy, the APA would aim to know about and recognize the sorts of careers that the three exemplary students and others to whom I have referred above have carved out. Tenure-track teaching and research positions in universities are not the only application of the PhD in philosophy.

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    8. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      I think you are right, and I apologize for this oversight. I think that I have been overly focused on the academic job market. Angelo Kyrilov and I had already discussed accepting entries on all graduates, which is something we hope to announce Monday or soon after. I need to check with our IRB to make sure that is within the scope of our original application, but if all checks out than we will happily accept these data points soon. Thank you for your insights and suggestions.

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    9. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      A follow up clarification: although our project has received funding by the APA, we are not representatives of the APA, but an independent research project on placement. PhilJobs, on the other hand, is a collaboration between the APA and PhilPapers.

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    10. William Blattner Avatar
      William Blattner

      Thank you for your swift response, Carolyn, and you willingness to adapt your model to the issues I have raised. Your efforts on behalf of the profession are admirable and long overdue.

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    11. William Blattner Avatar
      William Blattner

      Thank you for the clarification. The precise relationships between the various efforts have not been too clear to me. I am offering the same reflections to the Phil Jobs people.

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    12. anon Avatar
      anon

      Hey Carolyn,
      Thanks so much for your efforts on this! I have a question that you may have addressed elsewhere, so if this is redundant, my apologies.
      Looking at your data, I have noticed that some departments have failed to list internal lectureships under “temporary positions” (I know this because of my familiarity with some of the departments listed & their recent grads). Are there explicit criteria that exclude such lectureships? E.g, many departments hire their unemployed newly-minted PhDs into one-year lectureships in the department, but some departments have failed to list these positions under “temporary positions” (they haven’t listed them at all). This makes it look like such grads have gone immediately into external permanent positions when in fact they have been floated by their home department for a year as a lecturer, generally after trying and failing to get any other kind of employment. This strikes me as an unwanted skew in the data. Thoughts?

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    13. Carolyn Dicey Jennings Avatar
      Carolyn Dicey Jennings

      Hi anon,
      Thank you for your note. We don’t exclude any placements at this point. We are aiming to have a complete placement record, but I know that there are gaps like the ones you mention. We hope to soon compare graduation year to permanent placement year, which I think will answer many of your worries. Let me know if you have other questions and thanks for your interest in the project!

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    14. anon Avatar
      anon

      Hi Carolyn, anon 6:42 here.
      Thanks for clarifying. Unfortunately, some departments do seem to be interpreting ‘placements’ differently and are allowing themselves to systematically exclude internal, one-year lectureships. Perhaps future data-gathering could stress even more explicitly to departments that all full-time post-PhD placements are to be reported, even those in the home department/institution?
      And I agree that matching placement with graduation year will help to flesh out the full picture there as well.
      Thanks again for your important efforts on this.

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