scholarly journals Current Research Evaluation Topics in Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zehra Taskin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Citation Analysis ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Need To Evaluate ◽  
Different Characteristics

The social sciences, as a collection of scholarly fields, have quite different characteristics compared to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) fields. Still, researchers in the social sciences have been evaluated similarly to researchers in STEM for many years. However, many studies have been published regarding the need to evaluate social sciences differently. This chapter examines research evaluation studies published in social sciences and presents the advantages and disadvantages of current research evaluation topics including altmetrics, content-based citation analysis, peer-review, and scientific visualization

scholarly journals Citation Analysis Shows Promise as an Effective Tool for Monograph Collection Development

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Scott Marsalis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Citation Analysis ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Test Method ◽  
Local Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Us

A Review of: Enger, K. B. (2009). Using citation analysis to develop core book collections in academic libraries. Library & Information Science Research, 31(2), 107-112. Objective – To test whether acquiring books written by authors of highly cited journal articles is an effective method for building a collection in the social sciences. Design – Comparison Study. Setting – Academic library at a public university in the US. Subjects – A total of 1,359 book titles, selected by traditional means (n=1,267) or based on citation analysis (n=92). Methods – The researchers identified highly-ranked authors, defined as the most frequently cited authors publishing in journals with an impact factor greater than one, with no more than six journals in any category, using 1999 ISI data. They included authors in the categories Business, Anthropology, Criminology & Penology, Education & Education Research, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology/Anthropology, and General Social Sciences. The Books in Print bibliographic tool was searched to identify monographs published by these authors, and any titles not already owned were purchased. All books in the study were available to patrons by Fall 2005. The researchers collected circulation data in Spring 2007, and used it to compare titles acquired by this method with titles selected by traditional means. Main Results – Overall, books selected by traditional methods circulated more than those selected by citation analysis, with differences significant at the .001 level. However, at the subject category level, there was no significant difference at the .05 level. Most books selected by the test method circulated one to two times. Conclusion – Citation analysis can be an effective method for building a relevant book collection, and may be especially effective for identifying works relevant to a discipline beyond local context.

Methods for mapping the impact of social sciences and humanities—A literature review

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Budtz Pedersen ◽  
Jonas Følsgaard Grønvad ◽  
Rolf Hvidtfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Impact ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Methodological Pluralism ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This article explores the current literature on ‘research impact’ in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). By providing a comprehensive review of available literature, drawing on national and international experiences, we take a systematic look at the impact agenda within SSH. The primary objective of this article is to examine key methodological components used to assess research impact comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The study finds that research impact is a highly complex and contested concept in the SSH literature. Drawing on the strong methodological pluralism emerging in the literature, we conclude that there is considerable room for researchers, universities, and funding agencies to establish impact assessment tools directed towards specific missions while avoiding catch-all indicators and universal metrics.

scholarly journals Are book publications disappearing from scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities?

2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 592-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim C.E. Engels ◽  
Andreja Istenič Starčič ◽  
Emanuel Kulczycki ◽  
Janne Pölönen ◽  
Gunnar Sivertsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Scholarly Book ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Evaluation Systems ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Comprehensive Coverage

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history. Design/methodology/approach Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries. Findings As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH. Research limitations/implications The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH. Originality/value The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.

Institutional Design for Collective Action: Tweaking the Rules of the Game for the Common Good

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinz-Dieter Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Urban Safety ◽  
The Common ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Abstract At present, institutional design is an under-theorized and underdeveloped part of the social sciences. In this paper I focus on designs for situations of collective action where the outcome is controlled by the choices of several self-interested actors. In those situations the goal of institutional design is to alter the rules of the game so that self-interested actors find it rational to cooperate. I explore the viability of that definition by considering two examples of institutional design: urban safety and academic peer review. I discuss the implications of my findings for our conception of rational self-interest and propose that three design principles – publicity, boundaries, and contiguity – can be inferred from the analysis.

scholarly journals The Uptake and Impact of a Label for Peer-Reviewed Books

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eline Vandewalle ◽  
Raf Guns ◽  
Tim C. E. Engels
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Funding System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Book Publishers

This article presents an analysis of the uptake of the GPRC label (Guaranteed Peer Reviewed Content label) since its introduction in 2010 until 2019. GPRC is a label for books that have been peer reviewed introduced by the Flemish publishers association. The GPRC label allows locally published scholarly books to be included in the regional database for the Social Sciences and Humanities which is used in the Flemish performance-based research funding system. Ten years after the start of the GPRC label, this is the first systematic analysis of the uptake of the label. We use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Our two main data sources are the Flemish regional database for the Social Sciences and Humanities, which currently includes 2,580 GPRC-labeled publications, and three interviews with experts on the GPRC label. Firstly, we study the importance of the label in the Flemish performance-based research funding system. Secondly, we analyse the label in terms of its possible effect on multilingualism and the local or international orientation of publications. Thirdly, we analyse to what extent the label has been used by the different disciplines. Lastly, we discuss the potential implications of the label for the peer review process among book publishers. We find that the GPRC label is of limited importance to the Flemish performance-based research funding system. However, we also conclude that the label has a specific use for locally oriented book publications and in particular for the discipline Law. Furthermore, by requiring publishers to adhere to a formalized peer review procedure, the label affects the peer review practices of local publishers because not all book publishers were using a formal system of peer review before the introduction of the label and even at those publishers who already practiced peer review, the label may have required the publishers to make these procedures more uniform.

scholarly journals SIOR: An Egalitarian Scientific Agora

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 955-961
Author(s):  
Esther Oliver ◽  
Andrea Scharnhorst ◽  
Joan Cabré ◽  
Vladia Ionescu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
International Level ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Data Source

The Social Impact Open Repository (SIOR) has become a unique data source at the international level in which researchers can display, quote, and store the social impact of their research results. SIOR arises from the social and political needs to know and connect with scientific projects to assess their social impact, promoting transparency of science and open-access systems. This repository has been designed to allow researchers to link their social impacts with research institutions and citizens. In short, SIOR reveals possibilities for transforming scientific research through means such as developing a qualitative tool as an egalitarian scientific agora that enables assessment of social improvements derived from social sciences and humanities (SSH) research. SIOR is a qualitative and open peer-review tool that allows citizens to comment online about an investigation’s impact on society.

scholarly journals Mapping Diversity of Publication Patterns in the Social Sciences and Humanities: An Approach Making Use of Fuzzy Cluster Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederik T. Verleysen ◽  
Arie Weeren
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Fuzzy Cluster ◽  
Fuzzy Cluster Analysis ◽  
Publication Type ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Publication Patterns ◽  
The Social ◽  
Publication Language

AbstractPurposeTo present a method for systematically mapping diversity of publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities in terms of publication type, publication language and co-authorship.Design/methodology/approachIn a follow-up to the hard partitioning clustering by Verleysen and Weeren in 2016, we now propose the complementary use of fuzzy cluster analysis, making use of a membership coefficient to study gradual differences between publication styles among authors within a scholarly discipline. The analysis of the probability density function of the membership coefficient allows to assess the distribution of publication styles within and between disciplines.FindingsAs an illustration we analyze 1,828 productive authors affiliated in Flanders, Belgium. Whereas a hard partitioning previously identified two broad publication styles, an international one vs. a domestic one, fuzzy analysis now shows gradual differences among authors. Internal diversity also varies across disciplines and can be explained by researchers’ specialization and dissemination strategies.Research limitationsThe dataset used is limited to one country for the years 2000–2011; a cognitive classification of authors may yield a different result from the affiliation-based classification used here.Practical implicationsOur method is applicable to other bibliometric and research evaluation contexts, especially for the social sciences and humanities in non-Anglophone countries.Originality/valueThe method proposed is a novel application of cluster analysis to the field of bibliometrics. Applied to publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities, for the first time it systematically documents intra-disciplinary diversity.

Calculating Networks: From Sociometry to PageRank

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Rieder
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Citation Analysis ◽  
Web Search ◽  
Network Algorithms ◽  
Pagerank Algorithm ◽  
The Social

This chapter ventures into the field of network algorithms, using the prehistory of Google’s PageRank algorithm to discuss yet another way to think about information ordering. The chapter shows how algorithmic ordering techniques exploit and integrate knowledge from areas other than information retrieval – in particular the social sciences and citation analysis – and demonstrates how the ‘politics’ of an algorithm can depend on small variations that lead to radically different outcomes. The context of web search means that the various techniques covered in the second part of the book are brought together into a shared application space, allowing for a more concrete return to earlier discussions of variation and combination in software.

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