Social Science Space

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, or DORA, has released a strategic plan to reinforce the organization’s vision “to advance practical and robust approaches to research assessment globally and across all scholarly disciplines.”

One reason that many social scientists care about impact is that they see in social science the promise of and a path for knowledge – data, analysis, concepts – shaping the world they want to make. 

If traditional filters of prestige are themselves steeped in a set of tacit values that may no longer adequately respect the modes of labor (or the laborers themselves), then when better to step back for a moment to ask what we are counting — and why?

Quantification can reformulate something as complex and multidimensional as teaching into a one-dimensional score. And such a score gives the possessor a sense of control and understanding. But, given the implications of quantification, this is an illusion.

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 Reymert, find metrics continue to play a significant role in shaping these decisions, especially for reviewers who are highly ranked themselves.

Using bibliometrics to measure and assess researchers has become increasingly common, but does implementing these policies therefore devalue the metrics they are based on? Here researchers present evidence from a study of Italian researchers revealing how the introduction of bibliometric targets has changed the way Italian academics cite and use the work of their colleagues.

SAGE Publishing, the parent of Social Science Space, has released a report on measuring the impact of social science. Two issues undergird the report – that traditional “literature-based” measurements of impact are insufficient for modern demands to show value for money, and that new technologies make new ways of measuring impact possible.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure seems to have been the case with Robert Opie, founder of Museum of […]

San Francisco Police were out in force February 3, 2013. Having witnessed chaos after the Giants won the World Series […]

The customer may always be right, but research has shown that their memory can sometimes fail them when recollecting service […]

We’re excited to announce the winner of the 2014 Best Paper Award from Organization and Environment! Andrew Hoffman of the […]

We are pleased to congratulate Indiana University’s Janet Hillier and Linda M. Dunn-Jensen, who have received the Fritz Roethlisberger Memorial […]