Archives des mots-clés : research performance

From Research Evaluation to Research Analytics. The digitization of academic performance measurement

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Authors : Anne K. Krüger, Sabrina Petersohn

One could think that bibliometric measurement of academic performance has always been digital since the computer-assisted invention of the Science Citation Index. Yet, since the 2000s, the digitization of bibliometric infrastructure has accelerated at a rapid pace. Citation databases are indexing an increasing variety of publication types.

Altmetric data aggregators are producing data on the reception of research outcomes. Machine-readable persistent identifiers are created to unambiguously identify researchers, research organizations, and research objects; and evaluative software tools and current research information systems are constantly enlarging their functionalities to make use of these data and extract meaning from them.

In this article, we analyse how these developments in evaluative bibliometrics have contributed to an extension of indicator-based research evaluation towards data-driven research analytics.

Drawing on empirical material from blogs and websites as well as from research and policy papers, we discuss how interoperability, scalability, and flexibility as material specificities of digital infrastructures generate new ways of data production and their assessment, which affect the possibilities of how academic performance can be understood and (e)valuated.

URL : From Research Evaluation to Research Analytics. The digitization of academic performance measurement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3384/VS.2001-5992.2022.9.1.11-46

The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative : Sharing data on scholarly research performance

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Authors : Katie Wilson, Lucy Montgomery, Cameron Neylon, Chun-Kai (Karl) Huang, Rebecca N. Handcock

In the current era of worldwide competition in higher education, universities are caught up in market processes that encourage compliance with the measurement systems applied by world university rankings.

Despite questions about the rankings’ methodologies and data sources, universities continue to adopt assessment and evaluation practices that require academic researchers to publish in sources indexed by the major commercial bibliographic databases used by world rankings.

Building on a critique of the limited bibliometric measures and underlying assumptions of rankings, the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative interdisciplinary research project aggregates and analyses scholarly research data including open access output from multiple open sources for more than 20,000 institutions worldwide.

To understand who is creating knowledge and how diversity is enacted through the transmission of knowledge we analyse workforce demographic data. In this article, we discuss the project’s rationale, methodologies and examples of data analysis that can enable universities to make independent assessments, ask questions about rankings, and contribute to open knowledge-making and sharing.

Expanding on our presentation to the LIBER Online 2021 Conference, we discuss collaboration with academic libraries and other scholarly communication stakeholders to develop and extend the open knowledge project.

URL : The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative : Sharing data on scholarly research performance

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.11544

Research support services: What services…

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Research support services: What services do researchers need and use? :

“The search for improvements in research performance is a powerful influence on all universities. Success in research is a major component in the various indicators of overall university performance. Hence universities are increasingly interested in how they can improve their competitive position in attracting, supporting and promoting the work of high-quality researchers. In times of financial stringency, however, they are also seeking to ensure that support and other services operate both efficiently and cost-effectively.

In that context, this study reports on both the provision and the use of information-related support services for researchers in four research-intensive universities in the UK: Leicester, University College London (UCL), Warwick and York. It is one half of a pair of studies commissioned by the Research Information Network (RIN) in the UK and by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) in the US. Both studies set out to investigate what kinds of information-related services are available to support researchers through the research lifecycle, and how those services are used and valued by researchers. Both studies are limited in scope, and are subject to the limitations of small-scale case studies. Nevertheless, we hope that they offer some insights into the nature of the services provided to support researchers in their work, and the extent to which they meet researchers’ expressed needs.”

URL : http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Research_Support_Services_in_UK_Universities_report_for_screen.pdf