The Use And Misuse Of Bibliometric Indices In Evaluating Scholarly Performance

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:23:09 -0400

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Ethics In Science And Environmental Politics (ESEP) 

ESEP Theme Section: The Use And Misuse Of Bibliometric Indices In
Evaluating Scholarly Performance + accompanying Discussion Forum

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.

      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 

      Campbell P Escape from the impact factor 
      ESEP 8:5-7 

      Lawrence PA Lost in publication: how measurement harms
      science 
      ESEP 8:9-11 

      Todd PA, Ladle RJ Hidden dangers of a 'citation culture' 
      ESEP 8:13-16 

      Taylor M, Perakakis P, Trachana V The siege of science 
      ESEP 8:17-40 

      Cheung WWL The economics of post-doc publishing 
      ESEP 8:41-44 

      Tsikliras AC Chasing after the high impact 
      ESEP 8:45-47 

      Zitt M, Bassecoulard E Challenges for scientometric
      indicators: data demining, knowledge flows measurements
      and diversity issues 
      ESEP 8:49-60 

      Harzing AWK, van der Wal R Google Scholar as a new source
      for citation analysis 
      ESEP 8:61-73 

      Pauly D, Stergiou KI Re-interpretation of 'influence
      weight' as a citation-based Index of New Knowledge (INK) 
      ESEP 8:75-78 

      Giske J Benefitting from bibliometry 
      ESEP 8:79-81 

      Butler L Using a balanced approach to bibliometrics:
      quantitative performance measures in the Australian
      Research Quality Framework 
      ESEP 8:83-92 
      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 

      Harnad S Validating research performance metrics against
      peer rankings 
      ESEP 8:103-107
Received on Tue Aug 12 2008 - 04:29:11 BST