The equation is over the departments these filters select, on citations per academic. Change the filters or the value in the Departments tab and the same equation is applied to what you chose there.
total the department's total. A work two of its academics wrote counts once.
mean the mean of its academics' own figures. A work two of them wrote counts for each.
median the median of the same. Unmoved by one very cited academic.
people how many academics it has. After the rank filter, so a filtered list is measured on what it kept.
functions log, ln, log10, sqrt, exp, abs, min, max, round, with ^ for a power.
Ready-made
What each one says about size
mean * log(1 + people)
Size counts, but not in proportion
The default. A department twice the size is worth about a fifth more, not twice as much.
mean
Size does not count
The mean academic, whatever the headcount. The same as the per-academic reading of the leaderboard.
total
Size counts in full
The department total. The same as the total reading of the leaderboard.
median * sqrt(people)
The typical academic, times the square root of size
The median ignores a department carried by one outlier; the square root credits size more gently than a total and more firmly than a logarithm.
mean * 0.7 + median * 0.3
Mostly the mean, steadied by the median
A compromise for a department whose mean is pulled up by one very cited person.
What it does here
Citations per academic| Department | Total | Mean | Median | Academics | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvard Government Harvard | 46,454 | 1,457.3 | 606.0 | 41 | 3,880.3 |
| 2 | Penn Political Science Penn | 38,093 | 1,182.7 | 613.0 | 37 | 3,728.7 |
| 3 | Columbia Political Science Columbia | 65,236 | 2,059.7 | 517.5 | 40 | 3,273.0 |
| 4 | Cornell Government Cornell | 28,381 | 954.4 | 510.0 | 35 | 3,017.2 |
| 5 | Yale Political Science Yale | 26,547 | 728.5 | 371.5 | 42 | 2,407.6 |
| 6 | Princeton Politics Princeton | 44,788 | 983.7 | 306.0 | 56 | 2,289.9 |
| 7 | Dartmouth Government Dartmouth | 45,895 | 1,703.8 | 389.0 | 28 | 2,058.4 |
| 8 | Brown Political Science Brown | 10,754 | 402.6 | 212.0 | 30 | 1,161.2 |
Each row carries what went into its score, because an equation can only be judged against the numbers it was given. A department with no measured academics has no score and is not ranked : a formula that cannot be worked out is unknown, never a zero.