Research Publication Characteristics and Their Relative Values: A Report for the Publishing Research Consortium (original) (raw)

RQF Publication Quality Measures: Methodological Issues

2007

The Research Quality Framework uses Thomson-ISI citation benchmarks as its main set of objective measures of research quality. The Thomson-ISI measures rely on identifying a core set of journals in which the major publications for a discipline are to be found. The core for a discipline is determined by applying a nontransparent process that is partly based on Bradford’s Law (1934). Yet Bradford was not seeking measures about quality of publications or journals. How valid then is it to base measures of publication quality on Bradford’s Law? We explore this by returning to Bradford’s Law and subsequent related research asking ‘what is Bradford’s Law really about?’ We go further, and ask ‘does Bradford’s Law apply in Information Systems?’ We use data from John Lamp’s internationally respected Index of Information Systems Journals to explore the latter question. We have found that Information Systems may have a core of journals only a subset of which is also in the list of Thomson-ISI j...

Turning good research into good publications

Nankai Business Review International, 2013

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide a basic list of items that many standard empirical papers need and to highlight some common and fixable problems, as well as some corresponding suggestions and solutions such that authors can turn good research into good papers that have an improved chance of publication. Design/methodology/approach -This paper is a conceptual study on publishing, though it draws heavily on two of the authors' experience as editors of major management journals and their past work on paper organization and research design. A number of helpful resources for authors have also been provided from the academic literature -both journals and books -so that this paper can be a helpful resource to authors in organizing and preparing their work to submit to an appropriate journal.

Quality of research: which underlying values?

Scientometrics, 2013

Traditional bibliometric indicators are considered too limited for some research areas such as humanities and social sciences because they mostly reveal a specific aspect of academic performance (quantity of publications) and tend to ignore a significant part of research production. The frequent misuses (e.g. improper generalizations) of bibliometric measures results in a substantial part of the research community failing to consider the exact nature of bibliometric measures. This study investigates the links between practices for assessing academic performance, bibliometric methods' use and underlying values of research quality within the scientific community of University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Findings reveal four researcher profiles depending on research orientations and goals, ranging from those using "pure" quantitative tools to those using more subjective and personal techniques. Each profile is characterized according to disciplinary affiliation, tenure, academic function as well as commitment to quality values.

PUBLISHING PREFERENCES AMONG ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC QUALITY AND INNOVATION

The purpose of this paper was to explore the factors responsible for publication preferences among a select group of researchers attending a research writing workshop in Ghana. The objectives were to investigate the specific motivations for publishing; to explore the factors that influence researchers’ journal selection decisions; and availability of in-house programmes for journal publishing. The population of the study consisted of researchers from several academic institutions in Ghana who attended a research writing workshop. The research made use of the convenience sampling method to select a total of 67 researchers to participate in the study. The study used a self-administered closed-ended questionnaire consisting of 13 items and analysed using the mean test, standard deviation and simple percentages. The study found that researchers consider “contribution to scholarship” as the main motivation for publishing even though job mobility is a major source of motivation. Again, the major factor influencing journal selection decision is journal reputation. However, many researchers indicated a high preference for journals that does not charge publication fees. Finally, most respondents do not benefit from in-house research development programmes. The study recommends the development of in-house academic publishing programmes that are researcher-centred; the development of new of enhancement of existing research mentoring schemes, the issuance of “standalone” low quality journals; and the need for researchers to consider both intrinsic and extrinsic factors in their quest to become quality researchers.

Perceived journal quality: an indicator of research quality (editorial)

2008

Jennifer Fenwick ePublications@ SCU is an electronic repository administered by Southern Cross University Library. Its goal is to capture and preserve the intellectual output of Southern Cross University authors and researchers, and to increase visibility and impact through open access to researchers around the world. For further information please contact epubs@ scu. edu. au.

Comparative Study of Various Research Indices used to measure quality of Research Publications

The success of research projects funded by various agencies can be evaluated by studying the research publications generated from those projects and the research publications can be evaluated using impact factors and citation indices. There are several citation indices commonly used to assess the value/quality of a research publication or the research impact of an author or a journal. Research indices are calculated based on either citation values of research publications of a research scholar or the number of research papers published by a research scholar for a given period. There are many research indices developed by many types of research which include H-index, i10-index, G-index, H(2)-index, HG-index, Q2 -index, AR-index, M-quotient, M-index, W-index, Hw-index, E-index, A-index, R-index, W-index, J-index, etc. Out of these citation based research indices, h-index, G-index and i10-index are commonly used in some of the citation databases. Researchers have also studied the problems and limitations associated with these indices. In this paper, we have discussed the most popular research indices presently used which include h-index, G-index, and i-10-index along with their advantages, benefits, constraints, and disadvantages. Most of the research indices are calculated based on number of citations a paper receives. The major limitation of this model is that the citations usually increase with an increase in time even after the researcher dies, the citations and hence the indices continue to grow. It is argued that due to various reasons, a research publication may not attract citations initially for some years and after ten to twenty years some papers may attract citations. The best method of identifying the contribution to research is calculating the annual research index for an author by considering the annual research publications. Accordingly, based on annual research index of an author, his average research contribution for five years, or ten years, or twenty years or any desired period can be determined. Here, we have suggested some of the new research indices to be used for calculating research productivity of individuals as well as a team of people in an organization. The paper also contains some of our newly proposed indices including ARP-Index – (Annual Research Publication Index), RC-Index – (Research Continuation Index), RE-Index (Research expansion Index), Project Productivity Index, and Cost Index and the method of calculating these indices along with their advantages and limitations.

Measures for the Quality of Individual Articles, Authors and Journals

International Journal of …, 2010

Journal impact factors are not representatives of the quality measures of individual journal articles, authors and quality factor of journals. Hence, due to the high necessity of quality measures, this paper presents new quality measures for journals, authors and individual journal articles.