Beyond Bibliometrics

A comprehensive, state-of-the-art examination of the changing ways we measure scholarly performance and research impact. Bibliometrics has moved well beyond the mere tracking of bibliographic citations. The web enables new ways to measure scholarly productivity and impact, making available tools and data that can reveal patterns of intellectual activity and impact that were previously invisible: mentions, acknowledgments, endorsements, downloads, recommendations, blog posts, tweets. This book describes recent theoretical and practical advances in metrics-based research, examining a variety of alternative metrics—or “altmetrics”—while also considering the ethical and cultural consequences of relying on metrics to assess the quality of scholarship. Once the domain of information scientists and mathematicians, bibliometrics is now a fast-growing, multidisciplinary field that ranges from webometrics to scientometrics to influmetrics. The contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics discuss the changing environment of scholarly publishing, the effects of open access and Web 2.0 on genres of discourse, novel analytic methods, and the emergence of next-generation metrics in a performance-conscious age. Contributors Mayur Amin, Judit Bar-Ilan, Johann Bauer, Lutz Bornmann, Benjamin F. Bowman, Kevin W. Boyack, Blaise Cronin, Ronald Day, Nicola De Bellis, Jonathan Furner, Yves Gingras, Stefanie Haustein, Edwin Henneken, Peter A. Hook, Judith Kamalski, Richard Klavans, Kayvan Kousha, Michael Kurtz, Mark Largent, Julia Lane, Vincent Larivière, Loet Leydesdorff, Werner Marx, Katherine W. McCain, Margit Palzenberger, Andrew Plume, Jason Priem, Rebecca Rosen, Hermann Schier, Hadas Shema, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, Daril Vilhena, Jevin West, Paul Wouters

A comprehensive, state-of-the-art examination of the changing ways we measure scholarly performance and research impact. Bibliometrics has moved well beyond the mere tracking of bibliographic citations. The web enables new ways to measure scholarly productivity and impact, making available tools and data that can reveal patterns of intellectual activity and impact that were previously invisible: mentions, acknowledgments, endorsements, downloads, recommendations, blog posts, tweets. This book describes recent theoretical and practical advances in metrics-based research, examining a variety of alternative metrics—or “altmetrics”—while also considering the ethical and cultural consequences of relying on metrics to assess the quality of scholarship. Once the domain of information scientists and mathematicians, bibliometrics is now a fast-growing, multidisciplinary field that ranges from webometrics to scientometrics to influmetrics. The contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics discuss the changing environment of scholarly publishing, the effects of open access and Web 2.0 on genres of discourse, novel analytic methods, and the emergence of next-generation metrics in a performance-conscious age. Contributors Mayur Amin, Judit Bar-Ilan, Johann Bauer, Lutz Bornmann, Benjamin F. Bowman, Kevin W. Boyack, Blaise Cronin, Ronald Day, Nicola De Bellis, Jonathan Furner, Yves Gingras, Stefanie Haustein, Edwin Henneken, Peter A. Hook, Judith Kamalski, Richard Klavans, Kayvan Kousha, Michael Kurtz, Mark Largent, Julia Lane, Vincent Larivière, Loet Leydesdorff, Werner Marx, Katherine W. McCain, Margit Palzenberger, Andrew Plume, Jason Priem, Rebecca Rosen, Hermann Schier, Hadas Shema, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, Daril Vilhena, Jevin West, Paul Wouters

This book analyses and discusses the recent developments for assessing research quality in the humanities and related fields in the social sciences. Research assessments in the humanities are highly controversial and the evaluation of humanities research is delicate. While citation-based research performance indicators are widely used in the natural and life sciences, quantitative measures for research performance meet strong opposition in the humanities. This volume combines the presentation of state-of-the-art projects on research assessments in the humanities by humanities scholars themselves with a description of the evaluation of humanities research in practice presented by research funders. Bibliometric issues concerning humanities research complete the exhaustive analysis of humanities research assessment. The selection of authors is well-balanced between humanities scholars, research funders, and researchers on higher education. Hence, the edited volume succeeds in painting a comprehensive picture of research evaluation in the humanities. This book is valuable to university and science policy makers, university administrators, research evaluators, bibliometricians as well as humanities scholars who seek expert knowledge in research evaluation in the humanities.

Bibliometrics and altmetrics are increasingly becoming the focus of interest in the context of research evaluation. The Handbook Bibliometrics provides a comprehensive introduction to quantifying scientific output in addition to a historical derivation, individual indicators, institutions, application perspectives and data bases. Furthermore, application scenarios, training and qualification on bibliometrics and their implications are considered.

Why bibliometrics is useful for understanding the global dynamics of science but generate perverse effects when applied inappropriately in research evaluation and university rankings. The research evaluation market is booming. “Ranking,” “metrics,” “h-index,” and “impact factors” are reigning buzzwords. Government and research administrators want to evaluate everything—teachers, professors, training programs, universities—using quantitative indicators. Among the tools used to measure “research excellence,” bibliometrics—aggregate data on publications and citations—has become dominant. Bibliometrics is hailed as an “objective” measure of research quality, a quantitative measure more useful than “subjective” and intuitive evaluation methods such as peer review that have been used since scientific papers were first published in the seventeenth century. In this book, Yves Gingras offers a spirited argument against an unquestioning reliance on bibliometrics as an indicator of research quality. Gingras shows that bibliometric rankings have no real scientific validity, rarely measuring what they pretend to. Although the study of publication and citation patterns, at the proper scales, can yield insights on the global dynamics of science over time, ill-defined quantitative indicators often generate perverse and unintended effects on the direction of research. Moreover, abuse of bibliometrics occurs when data is manipulated to boost rankings. Gingras looks at the politics of evaluation and argues that using numbers can be a way to control scientists and diminish their autonomy in the evaluation process. Proposing precise criteria for establishing the validity of indicators at a given scale of analysis, Gingras questions why universities are so eager to let invalid indicators influence their research strategy.

How the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The traditional academic imperative to “publish or perish” is increasingly coupled with the newer necessity of “impact or perish”—the requirement that a publication have “impact,” as measured by a variety of metrics, including citations, views, and downloads. Gaming the Metrics examines how the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced radically new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The contributors show that the metrics-based “audit culture” has changed the ecology of research, fostering the gaming and manipulation of quantitative indicators, which lead to the invention of such novel forms of misconduct as citation rings and variously rigged peer reviews. The chapters, written by both scholars and those in the trenches of academic publication, provide a map of academic fraud and misconduct today. They consider such topics as the shortcomings of metrics, the gaming of impact factors, the emergence of so-called predatory journals, the “salami slicing” of scientific findings, the rigging of global university rankings, and the creation of new watchdogs and forensic practices.

Research libraries have engaged in publishing activities in the past, but recently there has been intense growth in the number of library publishing services supporting faculty and students. Unified by a commitment to both access and service, library publishing programs have grown from an early focus on backlist digitization to publication of student works, textbooks, and research data. This growing engagement with publishing is a natural and research data. This growing engagement with publishing is a natural extension of the academic library's commitment to support the creation of and access to scholarship. Getting the Word Out examines the growing trend in library publishing with 11 chapters by some of the most talented thinkers in the field. Edited by library publishing experts Maria Bonn, of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and Mike Furlough, HathiTrust Digital Library, this book deepens current discussions in the field, and provides decision makers and practitioners with an introduction to the state of the field with an eye towards future prospects. -- from back cover.