Social Science Space

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.

“Make sure you’re not only citing white guys!” That was the unmistakable takeaway Wednesday as Deen Freelon discussed his research into citation inequities in the social sciences.

In this post, Jorrit Smit and Laurens Hessels, draw on a recent analysis of different impact evaluation tools to explore how they constitute and direct conceptions of research impact. Finding a common separation between evaluation focused on scientific and societal impact, they suggest bridging this divide may prove beneficial to producing research that has public value, rather than research that achieves particular metrics.

Lizzie Gadd argues that any commitment to responsible research assessment needs to include action on global university rankings. She argues universities should unite around the principle of being ‘much more than their rank.’

In academia gender bias is often figured in terms of research productivity and differentials surrounding the academic work of men and women. Alesia Zuccala and Gemma Derrick posit that this outlook inherently ignores a wider set of variables impacting women, and that attempts to achieve cultural change in academia can only be realised, by acknowledging variables that are ultimately difficult to quantify.

Although experts in bibliometry have pointed out the dubious nature of the h-index, most researchers do not always seem to understand that its properties make it a far-from-valid index to seriously and ethically assess the quality or scientific impact of publications.

This year, SAGE will analyze citation data for articles published in SAGE journals in 2009 to find out the most highly cited through the end of 2019. In May, we will present our inaugural 10-Year Impact Awards to the authors of the three papers with the most citations and share helpful insights we learned.

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.

Standing in a powerful pose increases your testosterone levels. Ten thousand hours of practice leads to mastery and high achievement. Eating out of large bowls encourages overeating. These are just a few examples of big ideas that have formed the basis of popular science books, only to be overturned by further research or a closer reading of the evidence…

The future of the academic monograph has been questioned for over two decades. At the heart of this ‘monograph crisis’ has been a publishing industry centred on the print publication of monographs and a failure and lack of incentives to develop business models that would support a transition to open digital monographs. In this post Mike Taylor argues that if monographs are to be appropriately valued, there is a pressing need to further integrate monographs into the digital infrastructure of scholarly communication. Failing this, the difficulty in tracking the usage and discovery of monographs online, will likely make the case for justifying further investment in monographs harder.

Arlette Jappe, David Pithan and Thomas Heinze find that the growth in the volume of ‘evaluative citation analysis’ publications has not led to the formation of an intellectual field with strong reputational control. This has left a gap which has been filled by commercial database providers, who by selecting and distributing research metrics have gained a powerful role in defining standards of research excellence without being challenged by expert authority.

Burned out by the hamster-wheel of academe and the regime of metrics, John Postill decided the tonic would be to write a spoof spy thriller about a Spanish nerd with a silly name who moves to London in 1994 and accidentally foils a terrorist plot by an evil anthropologist.