scholarly journals Making sense of altmetrics: The perceived threats and opportunities for academic identity

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Áine Regan ◽  
Maeve Henchion
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Academic Identity ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Quantitative Indicators

Abstract How research impact is defined and evaluated is much-debated at research policy level. Offering one avenue for capturing societal research impact, altmetrics are proposed as quantitative indicators providing a measure of the reach and attention that a research output, such as a peer-reviewed paper, is receiving online. Eighty publicly-funded food researchers participated in an online mixed-methods engagement study. The analytical framework of sensemaking was used to explore participants’ views of altmetrics as a threat or opportunity for their perceived professional identities. The identities important to our participants included ensuring rigour and quality in knowledge production; communicating and engaging with non-academic audiences; and bringing about tangible and meaningful changes in society. While an appetite for changes to research evaluation was apparent in our study, altmetrics was perceived to introduce a number of different threats as well as opportunities to the academic identity, which will influence its potential uptake and use.

scholarly journals Playing the fields: Theorizing research impact and its assessment

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Williams
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Pragmatic Research ◽  
The Media

Abstract How research is assessed affects what types of knowledge are valued, incentivized, and rewarded. An increasingly important element of contemporary research evaluation is the measurement of the wider impact of research (e.g. benefit to society, culture or economy). Although the measurement of impact has been highly contested, the area is under-theorized and dominated by pragmatic research policy imperatives. Informed by a sociological perspective, this article intervenes in this context by reframing research impact as the attainment and maintenance of capital (i.e. symbolic power or status) in various fields beyond academia. It argues that research impact occurs at the intersection of these fields of power. The article shows that impact involves various combinations of capital from the scholarly field, the field of politics, the field of application, the media field, and the economic field, which provide credibility, authority, utility, visibility, and weight, respectively. In exploring the forms of worth and value that underpin the pursuit of legitimacy in these fields, the article provides a new theoretical framework for understanding research impact and its assessment.

scholarly journals Home > All Content > Vol 50, No 1 (2019) Exploring Research–Policy Partnerships in International Development Cover Page Edited by: James Georgalakis and Pauline Rose June 2019 Volume 50 Issue 1 This issue aims to identify how partnerships focused on the production of policy-engaged research seek to achieve societal impact and explores the challenges in these processes. The collaborations analysed span academia, civil society and government, from the grassroots to the national and global levels. By locating these examples within the broader debates on interactions between researchers and research users designed to strengthen evidence informed decision making, this publication offers concepts and practices to inform those funding, designing and undertaking development research. The featured case studies are explored through the perspectives of both researchers and their partners in civil society and policy. They are predominantly taken from a diverse portfolio of research projects funded through the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) Strategic Partnership. A collaboration with the Impact Initiative, this IDS Bulletin is essential reading for all those in research organisations, development agencies and donors committed to the better use of evidence and learning for development. Exploring Research–Policy Partnerships in International Development James Georgalakis, Pauline Rose DOI: 10.19088/1968-2019.100 ABSTRACT FULL ISSUE PDF Foreword Diana Dalton DOI: 10.19088/1968-2019.102 ABSTRACT PDFONLINE ARTICLE Introduction: Identifying the Qualities of Research–Policy Partnerships in International Development – A New Analytical Framework James Georgalakis, Pauline Rose DOI: 10.19088/1968-2019.103 ABSTRACT PDFONLINE ARTICLE Rethinking Research Impact through Principles for Fair and Equitable Partnerships Kate Newman, Sowmyaa Bharadwaj, Jude Fransman DOI: 10.19088/1968-2019.104 ABSTRACT PDFONLINE ARTICLE Pathways to Impact: Insights from Research Partnerships in Uganda and India

IDS Bulletin ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Hinton ◽  
Rona Bronwin ◽  
Laura Savage
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
International Development ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
Research Organisations ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Publication practices in the Humanities

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
Joacim Hansson ◽  
Jukka Tyrkkö ◽  
Koraljka Golub ◽  
Ida Ahlström
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Research Output ◽  
University Management ◽  
University Policy ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Publication Patterns ◽  
Publication Practices ◽  
Local Research

This paper is a case study of research publication practices at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University, a young, mid-sized university in the south-east of Sweden. Research output was measured from publications in the local institutional repository following the guidelines of local research policy as defined in university documentation. The data collection comprised 3,316 metadata records of publications self-registered by authors affiliated with the faculty during the period of 2010–2018. A statistical analysis of research output was conducted, focusing on preferred publication types, disciplinary specificity, level of co-authorship, and the language of the publication as registered in the local repository. The analysis focused on two main research questions: 1) how do the local research practices stand in relation to traditional publication patterns in the humanities? 2) how do the observed publication patterns relate to local university policy on publication and research evaluation? The empirical results suggest a limited correlation between publication practices and research incentives from university management, a finding that is corroborated by previous research on the scholarly character of the humanities and university policies. Overall, traditional humanities publication patterns were largely maintained throughout the period under investigation.

scholarly journals Can altmetrics reflect societal impact considerations?: Exploring the potential of altmetrics in the context of a sustainability science research center

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Kassab ◽  
Lutz Bornmann ◽  
Robin Haunschild
Keyword(s):  
Sustainability Science ◽  
Expert Panel ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Research Proposal ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Ex Ante

Societal impact considerations play an increasingly important role in research evaluation. In particular, in the context of publicly funded research, proposal templates commonly include sections to outline strategies for achieving broader impact. Both the assessment of the strategies and the later evaluation of their success are associated with challenges in their own right. Ever since their introduction, altmetrics have been discussed as a remedy for assessing the societal impact of research output. On the basis of data from a research center in Switzerland, this study explores their potential for this purpose. The study is based on the papers (and the corresponding metrics) published by about 200 either accepted or rejected applicants for funding by the Competence Center Environment and Sustainability (CCES). The results of the study seem to indicate that altmetrics are not suitable for reflecting the societal impact of research that was considered: The metrics do not correlate with the ex ante considerations of an expert panel.

scholarly journals The Language of Sustainable Tourism as a Proxy Indicator of Quality

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Rene Brauer ◽  
Mirek Dymitrow
Keyword(s):  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Sustainable Tourism ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Tourism Industry ◽  
Tourism Research ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Narrative Constructions ◽  
Assessment Format ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Global Travel

Sustainable tourism (ST) has recently become the mainstream of the tourism industry and, accordingly, has influenced contemporary tourism research. However, ST is not just theories about indications and contraindications of global travel, but also a specific language that needs mastering to take sustainability work forward. In other words, what research receives recognition depends on the proficiency in how the articulation in research proposals and within assessment under the heading of “research impact”. The aim of this paper is to investigate how tourism research gains recognition within research evaluation, by investigating the national research appraisal in the United Kingdom (Research Excellence Framework). By using content analysis, we disentangle the rhetorical choices and narrative constructions within researchers’ impact claims. Our findings suggest that researchers adopt a rhetorical style that implies causality and promotes good outcomes facilitating ST. However, the structure of the assessment format enforces an articulation of sustainable research impact without stating the methodological limitations of that such claim. Therefore, the rhetorical choices of ST researchers merely represent a proxy indicator of the claimed impact. We conclude that the lack of rigor in accounting for the impact of ST research may inadvertently restrict attaining ST.

scholarly journals The gendered politics of researching military policy in the age of the ‘knowledge economy’

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sergio Catignani ◽  
Victoria M. Basham
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Gendered Politics ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Gendered Power ◽  
Army Reserves ◽  
Multiple Challenges

Abstract This article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relationships that keep hidden the significant roles women (in our case, the partners/spouses of reservists) play in state security. Accordingly, we argue that the functionalist and masculinist logics interpretive researchers face in the age of the knowledge economy help more in sustaining orthodox modes of knowledge production about militaries and security, and in reinforcing gendered power relations, than they do in advancing knowledge.

Towards complexity-sensitive book metrics for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Sīle ◽  
Raf Guns ◽  
Alesia A. Zuccala ◽  
Tim C.E. Engels
Keyword(s):  
Information Science ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Bibliographic Records ◽  
Bibliographic Data ◽  
The One ◽  
National Databases

PurposeThis study investigates an approach to book metrics for research evaluation that takes into account the complexity of scholarly monographs. This approach is based on work sets – unique scholarly works and their within-work related bibliographic entities – for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines bibliographic records on scholarly monographs acquired from four European databases (VABB in Flanders, Belgium; CROSBI in Croatia; CRISTIN in Norway; COBISS in Slovenia). Following a data enrichment process using metadata from OCLC WorldCat and Amazon Goodreads, the authors identify work sets and the corresponding ISBNs. Next, on the basis of the number of ISBNs per work set and the presence in WorldCat, they design a typology of scholarly monographs: Globally visible single-expression works, Globally visible multi-expression works, Miscellaneous and Globally invisible works.FindingsThe findings show that the concept “work set” and the proposed typology can aid the identification of influential scholarly monographs in the social sciences and humanities (i.e. the Globally visible multi-expression works).Practical implicationsIn light of the findings, the authors outline requirements for the bibliographic control of scholarly monographs in national databases for research output that facilitate the use of the approach proposed here.Originality/valueThe authors use insights from library and information science (LIS) to construct complexity-sensitive book metrics. In doing so, the authors, on the one hand, propose a solution to a problem in research evaluation and, on the other hand, bring to attention the need for a dialogue between LIS and neighbouring communities that work with bibliographic data.

Constructing academic identity in the European higher education space: Experiences of early career educational researchers

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-268
Author(s):  
Sanja Djerasimovic ◽  
Marialuisa Villani
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Academic Identity ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Academic Values ◽  
Professional Identification ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit ◽  
European Higher Education

This exploratory paper presents insights from a qualitative interview-based study of the academic identity-building among a group of early career researchers working in the field of education across the European higher education space. Set against a policy background framed by the initiatives in European higher education and research policy, geared towards a production of a mobile, entrepreneurial researcher in pursuit of ‘valuable’ knowledge, the respondents’ narratives reveal individual complexity, but also emerging patterns of professional identification. We identify the traditional academic values of creating and sharing knowledge validated by an epistemic community, and pursuing autonomy and collegiality in research, as still dominant, however, find these interacting with the demonstration of a strong proactive, entrepreneurial spirit, and a lack of institutional attachment. The narratives indicate the availability of supportive, encouraging communities as being of high significance, and contest the notions of Europeanisation and the utility of geographic mobility in researchers’ identities. The paper discusses different types of academic identification driven by value orientation and social attachment that emerged from the early career researchers’ interviews, alongside pervasive issues around mobility raised in most narratives, and concludes with suggestions for further study.

Limits of change: cognitive constraints on “postmodernization” and the political redirection of science

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen Gläser
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cognitive State ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Societal Welfare ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Science Information ◽  
Level Of Analysis

The debate about revitalization of the finalization theory was documented in 1997 in Social Science Information. It hinted at a worthwhile methodological idea that could be useful in current debates on science—society relationships. Finalization theory asked whether a field's cognitive state constrains research policy attempts to direct the field toward applications. Since the difficulties faced in answering this question are at least partly due to the level of analysis, this article proposes refocusing finalization theory on the micro-level of research processes and research trails. On the basis of an empirical analysis, the cognitive links between basic research and contexts of applications are explored. Five types of basic research can be distinguished by their various cognitive links to contexts of application. Scientists' opportunities to change the links between their basic research and applications are discussed. Analysis on the micro-level enables conclusions to be drawn about (1) the scope of hypotheses about changes in knowledge-production and (2) constraints on institutional pressure for basic research to contribute to societal welfare.

scholarly journals Women’s organizing against extractivism: towards a decolonial multi-sited analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Angela Caretta ◽  
Sofia Zaragocin ◽  
Bethani Turley ◽  
Kamila Torres Orellana
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Body ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Geographical Knowledge ◽  
Extractive Industry ◽  
Natural Resource Extraction ◽  
The North ◽  
Embodied Water

In Anglophone geography, proposals have called for the decolonization of geographical knowledge production to be focused on tangible and material manifestations of how dialogue is initiated and mediated among different ontologies and epistemologies. We strive to respond to this call by empirically cutting across the American continent to highlight the embodied and transnational dimensions of natural resource extraction. Across the Americas, extractive industries’ water usage often brings corporations into prolonged conflicts with local communities, who mobilize to resist the initiation and/or expansion of extractive activities that they view as threatening to their health, way of life, and their families and communities’ territories. Through two case studies from West Virginia (WV), USA, and Cuenca, Ecuador, we propose an analytical framework capturing how women organize against the extractive industry as a result of embodied water pollution. We do this with the aim of decolonizing geographical knowledge production, as we propose a decolonial, multi-sited analytical approach, which serves to rethink the scale of effects of extractive industry. By showing how resource extraction affects women’s bodies and water while also effectively allowing us to compare and contrast embodied water relations in WV and Ecuador, we better understand how extractivism works across scales—the body, the environment, and transnationally. We contend that a multi-sited approach disrupts the North–South geographical discursive divide and furthers a decolonial geographical approach in making apparent the embodied production and lived experience of territory across various scales. In this piece, we promote debates on decoloniality within Anglophone geography by proposing that we must not only consider epistemologies and spatial ontologies outside the western canon, but engage with practices and theories occurring in different parts of the globe in a simultaneous fashion as well. We call on fellow geographers to do the same.

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