5 - Players and the Stakes

Summary

Putting the concept of the evaluation game to work in real-world settings in which the author has conducted both qualitative research and scientometrics analysis, Chapter 5 demonstrates the utility and uniqueness of this analytic tool. This turns around its promotion of a geopolitical perspective that obliges researchers to take into account the contexts in which the cultures of publish or perish take shape. The chapter explores how the key actors (players), that is institutions, managers, publishers, and researchers, play various types of evaluation game. Moreover, the chapter addresses the challenge of attributing causality to research evaluation systems and distinguishing the gaming from playing the evaluation game. Recognizing an activity as gaming or playing the evaluation game is not easy. The same activity (e.g., publishing in a predatory journal) may be considered gaming when it serves the purpose of maximizing profits, or playing the evaluation game when it is fulfilling evaluation requirements and the stakes in this game are not related to financial bonuses but to maintaining status quo in redefined work conditions.