Every full-time faculty member in the George Mason University Department of
Psychology — professors, instructors, everyone — measured the same way from two independent
bibliometric databases. Two things this shows that a hand-picked list never could:
how concentrated the department's research impact really is, and how much any one
person's "number" depends on which database you cite. Cards on the table.
1 · The whole department — a few people carry most of the impact
Every full-time faculty member, ranked by OpenAlex citations (linear scale, so
the real skew is visible — not hidden by a log axis). The dashed line is the department
median. Bars at zero are faculty with no indexed research profile (instructors, clinicians).
2 · Your rank is not a fact — it moves with the source
Each line is one faculty member with a profile on both databases; left = rank by
OpenAlex, right = rank by Google Scholar. Lines that cross are people whose standing depends
on which source you open.
3 · Breadth vs. depth
Horizontal = breadth (number of works); vertical = depth (h-index); marker size =
total citations. OpenAlex, fragmentation-corrected. Top-right is broad and deep.
4 · Who depends most on which database?
Fold-gap = larger citation count ÷ smaller, across the two sources. Near 1× =
source-proof; a long bar = the headline is a choice. Hover for CV and both counts.
5A · Your citation trajectory
Citations received each year, both sources. The gap is the same story at the
individual level: Scholar counts more (conference papers, chapters, self-citations).
2026 is a projection* (hollow marker, dashed) — year-to-date citations scaled to a full
year by the fraction of the year elapsed at the snapshot date. A flat, linear estimate, not a model.
5B · Career-centered trajectories — the whole department
Every faculty member's trajectory, each re-centered so year 0 = their first indexed
citation. Strip away when someone started and you can compare the shape of a career:
who accelerates, who plateaus, who is still climbing. Hover any line to trace one person; your lab is
always lit. (These databases post-date many careers, so early years can be undercounted; the current
year is projected as in 5A.)
SourceMeasureScaleMedian
Career year 0 = each person's first year with an indexed citation on the selected source.
Your lab is highlighted; hover any faint line to trace it, or click to pin it for a head-to-head
(click again to unpin). The dashed line is the median — of the whole department or just your own
rank — because a few superstars would make the mean misleading; it's drawn only where enough faculty
have reached that career year.
6 · Relative to the pack experimental
Each faculty's cumulative citations divided by the department median at the same career
year. The solid line at 1× is the median itself: above it means pulling ahead of the typical
colleague at that stage, below means behind. This strips out both career length and absolute
scale, so it asks one honest question — are you out- or under-performing the middle of the pack, and is
the gap widening or closing over a career? (Shares the pins from 5B — click any line.)
Source
Cumulative citations ÷ department median, matched by career year (log axis; the median is
1× by construction). Your lab is highlighted; hover to trace, click to pin.
Read with care: the median itself rises as junior faculty mature, so a line can drift
down without any real decline — it just means the pack caught up. This chart measures
position relative to a moving target, not absolute productivity. For that, see 5B (cumulative)
and 7–9 below.
7 · Impact per paper experimental
Citations ÷ number of works — influence density, not volume. It separates
"publishes a lot" from "publishes work the field actually cites." A long back-catalogue of rarely-cited
papers lands low here; a few field-shaping papers land high. (OpenAlex only — it's the source with a
clean work count. Field norms differ, so read within rank, not across disciplines.)
Mean citations per indexed work, sorted. Colored by rank; your lab outlined. Hover for the
underlying cites ÷ works.
8 · Still cited now? experimental
Career citations (horizontal) vs. recent citation rate — average citations received
per year since 2020 (vertical). The dashed line is the department's typical ratio of the two. Above it =
getting cited more than a back-catalogue that size would predict (still landing); below and to
the right = a large body of work that the field has largely stopped citing. A post-COVID pulse check.
Both axes log. Recent rate projects the current year as in 5A. OpenAlex. Your lab outlined
and labeled; hover any point.
9 · Citations by rank experimental
Every faculty member as a dot on their rank's row (log citation axis), with each rank's
median marked. Ranks are supposed to reflect a rising research record — so a dot that sits far to
the left of its row, down among a more junior rank's range, is the signal worth discussing. The question
isn't any one person; it's whether rank and research impact still track each other here.
Source
OpenAlex career citations, log scale. Dashed tick = that rank's median. OpenAlex-unresolved
faculty (e.g. a fragmented record) are absent — itself a kind of finding. Your lab outlined.
10 · Coasting vs. climbing experimental
Two things at once: accumulated stature (career citations, horizontal) and current
momentum (average citations per year since 2020, vertical). The dashed cross-hairs are the department
medians, splitting everyone into four quadrants — Sustained (big and still landing), Rising
(early but accelerating), Slowing (a large body of work the field cites less each year), and
Quiet. Where you sit — and where the senior ranks sit — is the whole question.
Source
OpenAlex, both axes log; current year projected as in 5A. Colored by rank; your lab outlined
and labeled. The Slowing quadrant (lower-right) is where accumulated citations outrun recent activity.
11 · Who's publishing now 2025–2026
Every chart above rewards decades of accumulated citations. This one asks the opposite
question — who is producing right now, and on what. Each active faculty member's 2025–2026 output,
pulled by ORCID across all fields and all access, open and subscription, so no one is
penalized for publishing in a closed journal. Two sources, because they disagree: the solid bar is
OpenAlex (open + closed); the light tail is the extra work only Google Scholar indexes —
closed-access journals, conference papers, chapters, and gray literature that OpenAlex never picked up.
Department-wide, Scholar finds — more recent works than OpenAlex. This counts recent works,
not citations — new work hasn't had time to be cited yet, so it's current activity, not current impact.
Works published 2025–2026 per active faculty member (those with at least one on either source).
Colored by rank; your lab outlined. The light tail beyond each solid bar is what Google Scholar catches and
OpenAlex misses. Hover for the year split, open vs. closed access, and what each person worked on. Scholar
figures are harvested per profile (self-curated, so completeness varies); OpenAlex counts can undercount
faculty without an ORCID whose record is fragmented.
The full table
Sorted by OpenAlex citations. “—” marks no indexed profile on that source. See
the notes below on unresolved cases.