The aim of peer review for research grants and academic hiring boards is to provide expert independent judgement on the quality of research proposals and candidates. Based on findings from a recent survey, Liv Langfeldt, Dag W. Aksnes and Ingvild Reyme…
Category: impact factor
To ensure the quality of peer reviewed research introduce randomness
Journals play an important role in signalling the quality of academic research. This quality is often linked to measures such as the journal impact factor. However, these measures often obscure the overall quality of research papers in a journal. In this post, Margit Osterloh and Bruno Frey argue that the overall quality and originality of … Continued
The academic papers researchers regard as significant are not those that are highly cited
For many years, academia has relied on citation count as the main way to measure the impact or importance of research, informing metrics such as the Impact Factor and the h-index. But how well do these metrics actually align with researchers’ subjective evaluation of impact and significance? Rachel Borchardt and Matthew R. Hartings report on a study that compares researchers’ […]
Book Review: Publish or Perish: Perceived Benefits versus Unintended Consequences by Imad A. Moosa
Academics today have to publish to succeed. In Publish or Perish: Perceived Benefits versus Unintended Consequences, Imad A. Moosa assesses the disastrous consequences of this view for academics, both personally and academically. Review by James Hartley. This review originally appeared on LSE Review of Books and is published under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 UK license. Publish or Perish: Perceived Benefits Versus Unintended Consequences. Imad […]
Accounting for Impact? How the Impact Factor is shaping research and what this means for knowledge production.
Why does the impact factor continue to play such a consequential role in academia? Alex Rushforth and Sarah de Rijcke look at how considerations of the metric enter in from early stages of research planning to the later stages of publication. Even with initiatives against the use of impact factors, scientists themselves will likely err on the side of caution and continue to […]
Empirical analysis reveals significant discrepancy between journal reputation and perceived relevance in economics.
Using survey data on the evaluations of 150 economics journals, a recent study explored the relationship between economics journals’ reputation and perceived relevance amongst economists working in the field. Justus Haucap shares some of the headline findings from the analysis based on the survey data. The findings suggest that a journal’s relevance is driven by average article quality, while reputation depends more […]
Scholarly behaviour and evaluation criteria: Uncovering the superficial characteristics that lead to higher citations
Do scholars adjust their publication behaviour depending on the criteria used in their evaluation? Maarten van Wesel presents findings showing how the publishing behaviour of scholars changed when evaluation switched from emphasising ‘publish-or-perish’ to impact factors. Whilst this may suggest a shift from quantity to quality, the number of citations a paper receives not only depends on its scholarly value, but […]
Changing UK science culture – a publisher perspective on the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Rebecca Lawrence shares her response to the Nuffield Council on Biothetics’ report on the culture of scientific research. The report raised important issues that publishers across the industry are actively working towards. But further collaboration is needed amongst research funders, universities and publishers to tackle the many issues in quality assessment, recognition of negative findings, and adequate peer review. Otherwise we are […]
Geographies of knowledge: practical ways to boost the visibility of research undertaken and published in the South.
Jonathan Harle and Sioux Cumming discuss how to strengthen research networks in developing countries. There is still a huge body of Southern research which simply never gets counted. Research that is undertaken and published in the South needs to be valued, and this will only happen when Southern universities value it in their reward and promotion systems and when research funders recognise it […]
Impact Round-Up 22nd March: Data journalism, code as a research object, and the cure for impact factor mania.
Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round-up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication. The high-profile launch of Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight site (manifesto here), along with similar journalistic ventures like Vox Media, and The Upshot, provide the background for this week’s top recommended read by economist Allison Schrager. The problem with data journalism (Quartz), imparts […]