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
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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