Use And Misuse Of Bibliometric Indices In Evaluating Scholarly Performance

Ethics In Science And Enviromental Politics / THEME SECTION / The Use And Misuse Of Bibliometric Indices In Evaluating Scholarly Performance

Editors: Howard I. Browman, Konstantinos I. Stergiou

Quantifying the relative performance of individual scholars, groups of scholars, departments, institutions, provinces/states/regions and countries has become an integral part of decision-making over research policy, funding allocations, awarding of grants, faculty hirings, and claims for promotion and tenure. Bibliometric indices (based mainly upon citation counts), such as the h-index and the journal impact factor, are heavily relied upon in such assessments. There is a growing consensus, and a deep concern, that these indices — more-and-more often used as a replacement for the informed judgement of peers — are misunderstood and are, therefore, often misinterpreted and misused. The articles in this ESEP Theme Section present a range of perspectives on these issues. Alternative approaches, tools and metrics that will hopefully lead to a more balanced role for these instruments are presented.

TITLE PAGE [Preface] ; Full text in pdf format

Browman HI, Stergiou KI / INTRODUCTION: Factors and indices are one thing, deciding who is scholarly, why they are scholarly, and the relative value of their scholarship is something else entirely ESEP 8:1-3 ; Full text in pdf format

Campbell P / Escape from the impact factor ESEP 8:5-7 ; Full text in pdf format

Lawrence PA / Lost in publication: how measurement harms science ESEP 8:9-11 ; Full text in pdf format

Todd PA, Ladle RJ / Hidden dangers of a ‘citation culture’ ESEP 8:13-16 ; Full text in pdf format

Taylor M, Perakakis P, Trachana V / The siege of science ESEP 8:17-40 ; Full text in pdf format

Cheung WWL/ The economics of post-doc publishing ESEP 8:41-44 ; Full text in pdf format

Tsikliras AC/ Chasing after the high impact ESEP 8:45-47 ; Full text in pdf format

Zitt M, Bassecoulard E/ Challenges for scientometric indicators: data demining, knowledge flows measurements and diversity issues ESEP 8:49-60 ; Full text in pdf format

Harzing AWK, van der Wal R / Google Scholar as a new source for citation analysis ESEP 8:61-73 ; Full text in pdf format

Pauly D, Stergiou KI / Re-interpretation of ‘influence weight’ as a citation-based Index of New Knowledge (INK) ESEP 8:75-78 ; Full text in pdf format

Giske J / Benefitting from bibliometry ESEP 8:79-81 ; Full text in pdf format

Butler L/ Using a balanced approach to bibliometrics: quantitative performance measures in the Australian Research Quality Framework ESEP 8:83-92 ; Full text in pdf format Erratum

Bornmann L, Mutz R, Neuhaus C, Daniel HD / Citation counts for research evaluation: standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting results ESEP 8:93-102 ; Full text in pdf format

Harnad S / Validating research performance metrics against peer rankings ESEP 8:103-107 ; Full text in pdf format

Table of Contents

[http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esep/v8/n1/]