Assessing Research Impact in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

“If we wish to resist the mechanical imposition of standardised citation measures then we need to suggest reasonable grounds for exempting certain fields from metric assessment and propose alternatives.”

So writes Professor Tom Lodge, Assistant Dean Research AHSS, UL, in a memorandum which urges Social Sciences and Humanities researchers to publish, where possible, in formats that lend themselves to comparable, if not statistical, indications of impact. Professor Lodge goes on to outline some of the alternative measures that might be used to indicate the standing and quality of published work in AHSS, including:

Books
o Consider the status of the publisher, perhaps compiling lists of top ten publishers in various fields
o Pay attention to review coverage, noting the standing of the reviewing journals as well as the content of the reviews
o Distinguish between refereed and non-refereed books
o Consider a book’s publishing history e.g. reprints and second subsequent editions may be considered to signal impact
o Consider a book’s sales figures, allowing for adjustments where a publication is in a very specialised field

Journals not indexed by Web of Science
o Consider using Publish or Perish, a citation analysis tool which analyses Google Scholar
o Refer to the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) for journal ratings
o Gather information from publishers

Other
o Consider work that shapes public policy debates
o Consider the status of conferences, and ranking of conference participation

Professor Lodge’s full memorandum can be accessed here, or on the library webpage (www.ul.ie/library) under Supporting Research -> Research Publication and Dissemination -> Citation Analysis.

A move to open access could bring significant system savings

A move to open access publishing could potentially bring system savings of around £215 million per annum in the UK, according to a report on the costs and benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models. An online model provided by the report authors runs as an executable application for those wishing to calculate national or institutional costs and benefits elsewhere.

John Houghton of the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University is the lead author of the January '09 JISC commissioned report Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits.

Three publishing models are analysed and costed per article (e-only):
1) subscription or toll-access publishing (reader pays) : £2337
2) open access publishing (author pays to publish in an open access journal) : £1524
3) self-archiving with overlay services (author self-archives in an institutional or subject repository, with overlay services provided by the publisher to include peer review management, editing, production and proofing) : £1125

Open access self-archiving with overlay services would result in a saving of over 50% on subscription publishing. Significant additional savings could be made if acquisition cost savings were to be included.

Potential savings of 30% per title for open access monograph publishing are calculated, but a recommendation is made for more research as that area develops.

The report further recommends that:

• Appropriate metrics should be used when evaluating research.
  
• Institutions and funding bodies should ensure the availability of funding for author or producer side fees. (The analysis suggests that “under the rather conservative modelling assumptions, funding agencies or institutions might be able to divert up to 3.5% of research funding to author-side payments before net benefits were exhausted.”)
  
• The development of institutional and subject repositories should be encouraged and supported.

The report, including an Addendum, the online model, and commentary, can be found at http://www.cfses.com/EI-ASPM/. Under ‘Commentary’ see especially the JISC response to the joint comments issued by the Publishers Association, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.

Piled Higher and Deeper - PHD for short!

Jorge Cham’s comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper centres on the life (or lack thereof) of a group of overworked, underpaid, procrastinating postgraduate students and their terrifying advisers.

It’s been going since 1997, and Cham still posts new comics "approximately 2.718 times a week". The comic strip is available for free on the website where it has 4.7 million visitors a year, and is syndicated for free in university newspapers.

Enjoy! at http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Click here for more on Jorge Cham and his comic ideas in Science's Career Magazine.

Mr Bean visits the Library

A 'what not to do' for researchers in Special Collections.

EndNote support online and on-campus

Those of you who have attended EndNote classes in the past may find these useful. They're the latest EndNote class slides fully indexed. If you want to refresh your memory, just click on the relevant section.

If it's been some time since you attended a class, you'll find that there's lots new. EndNote X2, the latest version of EndNote, is particularly good on using the Groups function to organise your library, on linking to full-text, and of course on working with EndNote Web.

EndNote classes on-campus, run by Research Support Librarian Aoife Geraghty, are on-going. Contact Aoife with EndNote questions, or contact Anne O'Dwyer in the Graduate School to book a place in class.