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News
American Review of Public Administration News15 August 2006 As a member of ASPA's Section on Public Administration Research (SPAR), you may be interested in some positive developments in the American Review of Public Administration, the journal you receive as a principal benefit of SPAR membership. These developments result in ARPA being a more substantial and higher-quality product for you, the reader, and at no additional cost.
ARPA now represents a more substantial product because each issue offers more content. We now typically publish 6-8 articles per issue, plus book reviews, up from 5-6 per issue last year and 4-5 per issue only a few years ago. As a result, we now offer you 25-33% more articles to choose from. Sharing our interest in building a better journal, Sage Publications has supported this expansion by generously consenting to publish this larger journal size.
As ARPA has grown in size, some objective evidence suggests that it has also increased in quality. The American Review continues to be included in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), both print and electronic versions. Worldwide, only twenty-six English-language academic journals in public policy and administration meet the high standards of impact, immediacy, and half-life established by the Thomson Institute of Scientific Information for inclusion in the SSCI. A journal's inclusion is a significant accomplishment, indicating elite status in its field, as only the top 10-12% of all scholarly journals are included. Only thirteen U.S. public policy and administration journals are included. In the past three years, ARPA has climbed from 24th to 15th to 13th among all PA/policy journals in the SSCI's "impact factor," a measure of how much each journal is cited in other journals. Among the thirteen U.S. journals alone, ARPA ranks seventh. Those figures indicate that more scholars now read and cite ARPA research.
How have we achieved these gains? First, through solicitations of manuscripts and marketing by Sage, we have worked strenuously to increase the volume of manuscript submissions. Those efforts have produced dramatic gains in submissions, which reached an all-time high of 149 in 2005 as opposed to 116 in 2004 and 111 in 2003. That greater volume of submissions means that we have more manuscripts to choose from, which, in turn, means a higher-quality product for our readers.
Second, with more manuscript submissions, we have accepted more manuscripts for publication, enabling us to expand the contents of each issue. At the same time, our manuscript acceptance rate has actually declined slightly from 17% in most recent years to 15% in 2005. That lower acceptance rate of course also reflects higher quality for ARPA.
Third, for the past several years, we have invited special essays by some of our field's most highly-regarded scholars, including Charles Goodsell, Don Kettl, Nancy Roberts, and David Rosenbloom, to name just a few. ARPA now typically features a lead invited essay in two or three issues each year. These original essays rank among the most read and most cited-as well as most interesting-articles to appear in the American Review in recent years, undoubtedly accounting in part for the increase in ARPA's "impact factor." Since that measure reflects the citation value of articles from a few years ago, we expect ARPA's impact factor to continue to increase due to these recent invited essays.
Fourth, the partnership with SPAR-and, through SPAR, with each of you-has also undoubtedly contributed to ARPA's increased strength and quality. We appreciate how many of you have volunteered to serve as manuscript reviewers or have submitted your own work for possible publication in ARPA. Your involvement during the few years of the ARPA-SPAR partnership represents an important part of ARPA's success. We also hope, of course, that you will remain supportive of ARPA by renewing your SPAR membership at the appropriate time.
If you have any questions or comments about ARPA, please feel free to contact me, John C. Thomas, at jcthomas@gsu.edu, or either of my fellow editors, Andy Glassberg (glassberg@umsl.edu) or Guy Adams (adams@missouri.edu). We will hope to hear from you.
On behalf of Andy and Guy,
John Clayton Thomas, Editor
The American Review of Public Administration Department of Public Administration & Urban Studies Andrew Young School of Policy Studies PO Box 3992 Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3992 USA
Annual Meeting Report 200618 May 2006
ASPA's Section on Public Administration Research (SPAR) Annual Business Meeting Report
-by Larry S. Luton, 2006-07 SPAR Chair
Election results and vacancy appointments:
Vice Chair: Maria Aristigueta
Treasurer/Secretary: Larry Walters
Board Members with 3 year terms (ending 2009)
Dan Balfour
Larkin Dudley
Andy Felts
Board Member vacancy replacements
Patricia Shields (term ending 2008)
Margaret Stout (term ending 2007)
Appointment since business meeting:
Brent Never, SPAR webmaster
Larry Walters reported that SPAR finances will be in good shape when we get the rebates we are due from ASPA. Rebates were not received because we were tardy in submitting some reports. [Those reports have now been submitted.]
Our section journal, The American Review of Public Administration, had a good year. Submissions were sufficiently numerous that ARPA reported a 15% acceptance rate in 2005 (down from 18% in 2004). The Social Science Citation Index impact factor has been on a consistently upward curve, with 2004's reaching 0.513. The business meeting voted to continue our relationship with ARPA.
SPAR's involvement with the Founders Forum continues. Meredith Newman represented us well in organizing the 2006 panels and John Thomas will do so for us in 2007. We expect to have smooth and positive relations with the ASPA 2007 Conference Program Committee because Meredith Newman is co-chair (with Doug Watson).
SPAR's 2006 Book Award was given to Michael Hamilton for Mining Environmental Policy: Comparing Indonesia and the USA (Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005). Hamilton won over six other submissions from publishers such as CQ Press, Brookings Institution Press, and several university presses.
At incoming chair Larry Luton's suggestion, the meeting decided to use the SPAR listserve instead of a newsletter to keep communication flowing among SPAR members. Board members agreed to submit at least two book or article reviews (no more than 75 words) in the coming year to contribute toward a more intensive use of the listserve. Margaret Stout agreed to serve as communications director, reminding board members to submit reviews. All SPAR members are encouraged to participate in sharing book and article reviews through the listserve.
Submissions should be sent to: spar@aspaonline.org
Guy Adams presented a proposal on behalf of Jay White that our section affiliate with White's effort to revive the Public Administration Research Annual. The meeting voted in support of that proposal.
Maria Aristigueta proposed that SPAR become involved with the 2007 Trans-Atlantic Dialogue which will take place in Delaware in June 2007. The theme is leadership and it will be explored in study group dialogues over 2 ½ days. The meeting voted in favor of that proposal.
SPAR Award for Best Book on Public Administration Scholarship
3 April 2005
SPAR has given its second annual award for best book of public administration scholarship to Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service (University of Michigan Press), coauthored by Steven Maynard-Moody of the
University of Kansas and Michael Musheno of San Francisco State University. The two authors received the award at the Section's Business Meeting at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Public Administration in April 2005 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The award winner was selected from all nominated books (with 2003 or 2004 copyright dates) by a committee chaired by John Clayton Thomas (Georgia State University), incoming Section Chair, and Maria Aristigueta (University of Delaware) and Bruce Perlman (University of New Mexico). Evaluative criteria included outstanding accomplishment of the research objectives, high-quality writing, and potential to constitute a lasting contribution to the public administration literature.
SPAR booth at ASPA Conference
6 February 2005
The Section on Public Administration Research (SPAR) organizes a booth in the 66th National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). Members are encouraged to bring a copy of their recent publications to have on display in the booth.
SPAR organizes the Founders' Forum
1 February 2005
The Section on Public Administration Research (SPAR) has organized the Founders' Forum track in the 66th National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). This year there are 10 panels.
The Panels are:
SPAR endorses 14 panels at ASPA National Conference
20 January 2005
The Section on Public Administration Research (SPAR) endorses 14 panels in the 66th National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). The endorsement includes all panels in two tracks of the Conference: 1) Budgeting and Financial Management and 2) PA Theory.
Sessions SPAR endorses are:
Budgeting and Financial Management track:
PA Theory track:
Education for the Public Service track:
Environment, Science, and Technology track:
Homeland Security track:
Intergov., Intersector, & Int'l Relations track:
Bridging the Gap: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Public Service Performance
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