The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

Journal impact factors - the good, the bad, and the ugly

This paper provides an overview of the concepts of citations and journal impact factors, and the implications of these metrics for the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (JSAIMM). Two key research literature databases publish journal impact factors; namely, Web of Science and Scopus. Different equations are used to calculate journal impact factors and care should be exercised when comparing different journals. The JSAIMM has a low impact factor compared with some of the more prestigious journals. It nevertheless compares well with journals serving other mining sectors, such as the Canadian CIM Journal. The problems associated with journal impact factors are discussed. These include questionable editorial practices, the negative impact of this concept on good research, and the problem of a few highly cited papers distorting the journal impact factor. As a consequence, there is growing resistance to the use of journal impact factors to measure research excellence. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment is a global movement striving for an alternative assessment of research quality. As a recommendation, the Editorial Board of the JSAIMM should adopt a pragmatic approach and not alter good journal policies simply to increase the journal impact factor. The focus should remain on publishing excellent quality papers. Marketing of the Journal, the quality of the published papers, and its open access policy should be used to counter the perception that journals with high impact factors are better options in which to publish good research material.https://journals.co.za/journal/saimmam2023Mining Engineerin

How Tsinghua Became a World Class Research University: A Case Study on the Impact of Rankings on a Chinese Higher Education Institution

Today’s global knowledge economy has highlighted the need for the comparison of higher education quality. This need has been largely met by international university rankings. Although it is widely recognized that no one ranking system is completely objective, higher education stakeholders across the world still take rankings’ results seriously. Rankings, thereby, exert a great deal of influence on higher education institutions. Ranking affects higher education through various approaches. In a variety of practical manifestations, the idea of building a “world-class” university has been widely adopted by national governments that urgently want to improve competitiveness in the globalized knowledge economy. Chinese universities (in this thesis, China, or Chinese, refers to mainland China) have been steadily climbing up international rankings over the last decade. The extraordinary achievement has its roots in the initiative of establishing “world-class” universities. This study explored the actual course of events through which a Chinese university raises its statures in global rankings. By using an exploratory case study research design, the study attempted to answer the question about how a Chinese university became a world-class research university according to the global ranking systems. The findings revealed that an antiquated university has the potential to update to a high-quality modern research institution within a short period of time if talents, resources, and governance mechanism are adequately aligned

The Double-Edged Sword of Industry Collaboration: Evidence from Engineering Academics in the UK

This paper studies the impact of university-industry collaboration on academic research output. We report findings from a unique longitudinal dataset on all the researchers in all the engineering departments of 40 major universities in the UK for the last 20 years. We introduce a new measure of industry collaboration based on the fraction of research grants that include industry partners. Our results show that productivity increases with the intensity of industry collaboration, but only up to a certain point. Above a certain threshold, research productivity declines. Our results are robust to several econometric estimation methods, measures of research output, and for various subsamples of academics

Impact of Research Assessment Exercises on Research Approaches and Foci of Accounting Disciplines in Australia

Peer reviewedPostprin

Etnička zastupljenost ženskih autorica u časopisima za filozofiju prema regionalnoj pripadnosti i specijalizaciji

Using bibliographic metadata from 177 Philosophy Journals between 1950 and 2020, this article presents new data on the under- representation of women authors in philosophy journals across decades and across four different compounding factors. First, we examine how philosophy fits in comparison to other academic disciplines. Second, we consider how the regional academic context in which Philosophy Journals operate impacts on author gender proportions. Third, we consider how the regional specialization of a journal impacts on author gender proportions. Fourth, and perhaps most interestingly, we consider the impact of author ethnicity on gender representation, and we examine the breakdown of author ethnicity across Philosophy Journals between 1950 and 2020. To our knowledge, this is the first work to offer an estimate for author ethnicity and gender in philosophy publications using a large- scale data set. We find that women authors are underrepresented in Philosophy Journals across time, across disciplines, across the globe, and regardless of ethnicity.Koristeći bibliografske metapodatke iz 177 časopisa za filozofiju između 1950. i 2020. godine, ovaj članak predstavlja nove podatke o podzastupljenosti žena kao autorica u filozofskim časopisima tijekom desetljeća i četiri različita čimbenika. Prvo, istražujemo kako filozofija stoji u usporedbi s drugim akademskim disciplinama. Drugo, razmatramo kako regionalni akademski kontekst u kojem djeluju časopisi za filozofiju utječe na omjere rodova autora. Treće, razmatramo kako regionalna specijalizacija časopisa utječe na omjere rodova autora. Četvrto, i možda najzanimljivije, razmatramo utjecaj etničke pripadnosti autora na zastupljenost rodova, te proučavamo raspodjelu etničke pripadnosti autora u časopisima za filozofiju između 1950. i 2020. godine. Koliko nam je poznato, ovo je prvo istraživanje koje nudi procjenu etničke pripadnosti i roda autora u filozofskim publikacijama koristeći veliki skup podataka. Podaci pokazuju da su žene kao autorice podzastupljene u časopisima za filozofiju tijekom vremena, disciplina, širom svijeta i bez obzira na etničku pripadnost

Journal copyright restrictions and actual open access availability - a study of articles published in eight top information systems journals (2010-2014)

Most scholarly journals have explicit copyright restrictions for authors outlining how published articles, or earlier manuscript versions of such articles, may be distributed on the open web. Empirical research on the development of open access (OA) is still scarce and methodologically fragmented, and research on the relationship between journal copyright restrictions and actual free online availability is non-existent. In this study the free availability of articles published in eight top journals within the field of Information Systems (IS) is analyzed by observing the availability of all articles published in the journals during 2010-2014 (1515 articles in total) through the use of Google and Google Scholar. The web locations and document versions of retrieved articles for up to three OA copies per published article were categorized manually. The web findings were contrasted to journal copyright information and augmented with citation data for each article. Around 60% of all published articles were found to have an OA copy available. The findings suggest that copyright restrictions weakly regulate actual author-side dissemination practice. The use of academic social networks (ASNs) for enabling online availability of research publications has grown increasingly popular, an avenue of research dissemination that most of the studied journal copyright agreements failed to explicitly accommodate.peerReviewe

Scientific Research, Writing, and Dissemination (Part 4/4): Dissemination of Scholarly Publications

Dissemination, of research-findings, is usually-seen, as the-culmination-stage, of the-entire research- process, and, hence, this-article closes the-tetrology on Scientific Research, Writing, and Dissemination. The-study was designed to-survey and analyze dissemination-awareness, patterns, and preferences, on scholarly-journal-publications, by-Engineering-faculty. The-study utilized a-survey, interviews and a-document-analysis. The-major-study-findings exposed 82% of the-respondents, who-stated that:  (1) they usually-disseminate their-research in Open-Access(OA) Journals, which are both; print & e-format; (2) they-usually-publish in-International-Journals; and (3) OA can be-beneficial, as it gives wider dissemination of research-works. 73% usually-publish in specialty-journal(s), while 64%-in publishing house(s) or platforms, with many-journals. 55% and 36% of the-respondents indicated that U.S.A. and UK is the-most-prestigious-country, for-them, to-publish, respectively. 55% also-stated, that works, in OA-journals, are not properly-peer-reviewed. To-give a-broader-perspective, the-synopsis of the-publishing process, alongside with the-dissemination-channels (Traditional-print-journals and ‘The Cost of Knowledge’ campaign; OA-Journals, including Predatory-journals; Institutional Repository (IR); Social-networks; and Conference-presentations) and other-relevant-issues, such-as: Future-prospects of the-dissemination; Credibility and ranking, of scientific-journals; Publication-Ethics in-scientific publishing; Choosing an-appropriate-journal; Submission of a-manuscript, for-review; and Increasing citation-rates of a-publication, were-presented. Moreover, constructive-criticism, on the-current-practices, in the-local context was-articulated, next-to relevant-recommendations, to-improve the-situation (at the-level of: government, university, school, and individual-faculty). In-addition, two-areas for further-research, was identified. This-paper reflects the-personal and independent-opinions of the-author and does-not-mirror the-positions, on the-subject-matter, of the-affiliated-school, or university. The-author trusts this-publication is very-tangible, as-well-as, timely; it-is, therefore, expected to-attract great-deal of attention, from different-researchers, regardless of their-discipline, stage of career-development, experience in-publishing, country, and type of their-institution, among-others. Keywords: academic ranking of journals, questioner, citation, outlet, journal selection, journal publication, publishing, manuscript submission