The vocabulary of ‘social return’, ‘intellectual productive capacity’, ‘economic generation’ may well grate against the traditional values of the arts and culture community but it is a shadow that cannot be ignored. But suggests the true value of the arts lies more in how it responds to the rise of disaffected democrats. In a time of increasing political disengagement, especially amongst the young […]
Category: Impact
Clicking on the real: telling stories and engaging audiences through interactive documentaries.
An interesting thing about contemporary media is just how much of it is factual. From journalism to social media, YouTube to reality TV we are surrounded by media that claims to be true. Often this content has a definite agenda; it wants to persuade us, make us click, join in and pass it on. How can we understand our changing […]
The lack of reward mechanisms for public scholarship severely limits the future of public engagement in the academy.
Scholars are increasingly expected to consider the wider public in their teaching and research activities, but with little to negative promotion incentive. In fact, finds Christopher Meyers, much of what academics do does not fit into the standard boxes of teaching, scholarship and service. Perhaps it’s time to replace these categories with a single holistic and qualitative standard: High quality teacher-scholars, wherein all of one’s professional activities are […]
Research assessment, altmetrics and tools for determining impact: Reading list for #HEFCEmetrics review launch.
David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, has announced that HEFCE are arranging an independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. The Impact blog welcomes this review and will look to encourage wider discussion and debate on how research is currently assessed and how it could be in years to come. Over the last two […]
HEFCE announces Open Access policy for the next REF in the UK: Why this Open Access policy will be a game-changer.
With the final consultation period now over, the Open Access policy for the next REF has been released. Alma Swan looks at the rollout which requires the deposit of articles into repositories and finds this is pragmatic but good policymaking. With that simple requirement, the culture in British universities can be shifted towards open access. Swan also notes areas where the […]
Four reasons to stop caring so much about the h-index.
The h-index attempts to measure the productivity and impact of the published work of scholar. But reducing scholarly work to a number in this way has significant limitations. Stacy Konkiel highlights four specific reasons the h-index fails to capture a complete picture of research impact. Furthermore, there are a variety of new altmetrics tools out there focusing on how to measure […]
Book Review: Punk Sociology by David Beer
This book explores the possibility of drawing upon a punk ethos to inspire sociology and to cultivate a vibrant future for the discipline. Aiming to fire the sociological imaginations of sociologists at any stage of their careers, from new students to established professors, it uses punk to think creatively about what sociology is and how it might be conducted. Dave O’Brien finds […]
Impact Round-Up 29th March: Citation types, commercialised knowledge, and boundary workers.
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. We need different types of citation: Replicates, Falsifies, DependsOn, Acknowledges … by Mike Taylor at SV-POW argues for further metadata on citation type to be pulled in, which would add a richer and more useful layer to citation metrics. Over […]
Book Review: The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities by Doris Sommer
Celebrating art and interpretation that take on social challenges, Doris Sommer looks to steer the humanities back to engagement with the world. Among the cases that she covers are top-down initiatives of political leaders, such as those launched by Antanas Mockus, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, and also bottom-up movements like the Theatre of the Oppressed created by the Brazilian director, writer, and […]
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 […]