Purpose: To design and test a simple, easily modifiable system for calculating faculty productivity in teaching, research, administration, and patient care in which all areas of endeavor would be recognized and high productivity in one area would produce results similar to high productivity in another at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
Method: A relative-value and time-based system was designed in 1996 so that similar efforts in the four areas would produce similar scores, and a profile reflecting the authors' estimates of high productivity ("super faculty") was developed for each area. The activity profiles of 17 faculty members were used to test the system.
Results: "Super-faculty" scores in all areas were similar. The faculty members' mean scores were higher for teaching and research than for administration and patient care, and all four mean scores were substantially lower than the respective totals for the "super faculty". In each category the scores of those faculty members who scored above the mean in that category were used to calculate new mean scores. The mean scores for these faculty members were similar to those for the "super faculty" in teaching and research but were substantially lower for administration and patient care. When the mean total score of the eight faculty members predicted to have total scores below the group mean was compared with the mean total score of the nine faculty members predicted to have total scores above the group mean, the difference was significant (p < .0001). For the former, every score in each category was below the mean, with the exception of one faculty member's score in one category. Of the latter, eight had higher scores in teaching and four had higher scores in teaching and research combined.
Conclusion: This system provides a quantitative method for the equal recognition of faculty productivity in a number of areas, and it may be useful as a starting point for other academic units exploring similar issues.