Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:43:13.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evaluating Research: the Case of Legal Scholarly Outputs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2015

Ginevra Peruginelli
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scientific scholarly communication is subject to selection rules. In recent years, the issues around the assessment of research results has assumed a central role in academia. Despite recent efforts, by several initiatives both at national and international level, and the adoption of guidelines that emerged from the evaluation of research programs at European level, the measurement and evaluation of the quality of research still faces strong opposition from all bibliometric areas, in which the instruments available (amount of citations identified, the impact factor, and so on) are not appropriate to the humanities and social sciences. In particular, specific attention is paid today to the role of the book, which is a fundamental resource in the processes of scientific scholarly communication. In this regard this paper, written by Ginevra Peruginelli, analyses the missing link between the indicators and legal scholars' notions of quality, with reference to the role of the monograph in legal science.

Keywords

legal researchbibliometricsresearch assessment
Type
Current Issues
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 50 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Footnotes

1 Paolo Rossi, ‘La valutazione della ricerca’ (2010) 2 Analysis: Rivista di cultura e politica scientifica 4.

2 The European Higher Education Area (EHEA), ‘Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Education’ <www.ehea.info/Uploads/about/BOLOGNA_DECLARATION1.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

3 For further information on Lisbon Agenda or Lisbon Process < portal.cor.europa.eu/europe2020/Profiles/Pages/TheLisbonStrategyinshort.aspx> accessed 31 December 2014.

4 <www.dfg.de/en/magazine/excellence_initiative/index.html> accessed 31 December 2014.

5 <www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/investissementsdavenir/AAP-IDEX-2010.html> accessed 31 December 2014.

6 <www.ref.ac.uk> accessed 31 December 2014.

7 Standard Evaluation Protocol 2015–2021: Protocol for Research Assessments in the Netherlands <www.vsnu.nl/files/documenten/Nieuwsberichten/SEP_2015–2021.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

8 <www.hefce.ac.uk/> accessed 31 December 2014.

9 Gibbons, Michael, Limoges, Camille, Nowotny, Helga, Scwartzman, Simon, Scott, Peter and Trow, Martin, The new production of knowledge. The dynamics of science and research in contemporary Societies (Sage 1994)Google Scholar

10 Baccini, Alberto, Valutare la ricerca scientifica. Uso e buso degli indicatori bibliometrici (Il Mulino 2010).Google Scholar

11 <www.ref.ac.uk> accessed 31 December 2014.

12 The ERA initiative assesses research quality within Australia's higher education institutions. Part of that assessment requires considering the quality of journals in which Australian researchers publish. Australian Research Council, ERA 2010 National Report <www.arc.gov.au/era/era_2010/pdf/ERA_report.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

13 Marialaura Vignocchi, Elena Giglia, ‘La valutazione della ricerca nelle ‘Humanities and Social Sciences’, Roma, 17 November 2014’ (2014) 3 Bibliotime <http://www.aib.it/aib/sezioni/emr/bibtime/num-xvii-3/vignocchi.htm accessed 31 December 2014.

14 Rob van Gestel and Jan Vranken, ‘Assessing Legal Research: Sense and Nonsense of Peer Review versus Bibliometrics and the Need for a European Approach’ (2011) 12 German Law 901.

15 Garfield, Eugene & Welljams-Dorof, Alfred, ‘Language use in international research: A citation analysis’ in Lambert, Richard D and Moore, Sarah Jane (eds), Foreign Language in the Workplace. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, (Sage 1990).Google Scholar

16 Thed van Leeuwen, ‘Bibliometric research evaluations, Web of Science and the Social Sciences and Humanities: a problematic relationship?’ (2013) 2 Bibliometrie - Praxis und Forschung <www.bibliometrie-pf.de/article/viewFile/173/218> accessed 31 December 2014.

17 Ben Martin, Paul Nightingale and Alfredo Yegros-Yegros ‘Science and technology studies: Exploring the knowledge base’ (2012) 41 Research Policy 1182.

18 Per O. Seglen and Dag Aksnes, ‘Scientific productivity and group size: a bibliometric analysis of Norwegian microbiological research’ (2000) 49 Scientometrics 125.

19 Henk F. Moed, Mark Luwel, Josee A. Houben, Eric Spruyt and Herman van den Berghe, ‘The effects of changes in the funding structure of the Flemish universities on their research capacity, productivity and impact during the 1980s and early 1990s’ (1998) 43 Scientometrics 231.

20 Hicks, Diana, ‘The four literatures of social science’ in Moed, Henk F., Glänzel, Wolfgang and Ulrich. Schmoch (eds), Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research. The use of publication and patent statistics in studies of S&T systems (Kluwer 2004).Google Scholar

21 Henk F. Moed, ‘The future of research evaluation rests with an intelligent combination of advanced metrics and transparent peer review’ (2007) 34 Science and Public Policy 575.

22 Linda Butler, ‘Assessing university research: A plea for a balanced approach’, (2007) 34 Science and Public Policy 565.

23 Alfred L. Brophy, ‘The relationship between Law Review Citations and Law school rankings’ (2007) 39 Conn. L. review 43.

24 Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells, ‘Ranking Law Journals and the Limits of Journal Citation Reports’ (2013) 12 Iel Paper in comparative analysis of institutions, economics and law < http://polis.unipmn.it/pubbl/RePEc/uca/ucaiel/iel012.pdf accessed 31 December 2014.

25 Elea Giménez-Toledo and Adelaida Román-Román, ‘Assessment of humanities and social sciences monographs through their publishers: a review and a study towards a model of evaluation’ (2009) 18 Research Evaluation 201.

26 Elea Giménez-Toledo, Carlos Tejada-Artigas and Jorge Mañana-Rodríguez, ‘Evaluation of scientific books' publishers in social sciences and humanities: Results of a survey’ (2013) 22 Research Evaluation 64.

27 Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells, ‘Ranking Law Journals and the Limits of Journal Citation Reports’ (2013) 12 Iel Paper in comparative analysis of institutions, economics and law < http://polis.unipmn.it/pubbl/RePEc/uca/ucaiel/iel012.pdf accessed 31 December 2014.

28 <www.anvur.org> accessed 31 December 2014.

29 <www.ittig.cnr.it> accessed 31 December 2014.

30 <www.leru.org> accessed 31 December 2014.

31 Commission, ‘A Reinforced European Research Area Partnership for Excellence and Growth’ (Communication) COM(2012) 392 final

32 Commission, ‘Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020’ 2013. <http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

33 Commission, ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ < http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda> accessed 31 December 2014.

34 Joint Declaration by the European Association of Research and Technological Organisations (EARTO), the European University Association (EUA), the League of European Research Universities (LERU), NordForsk, Science Europe (SE), the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER) and the European Commission on working in partnership in achieving the European Research Area, 2013 < http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/pdf/joint_declaration_2013.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

35 The European University Association (EUA) is the representative organisation of universities and national rectors' conferences in 47 European countries. <www.eua.be> accessed 31 December 2014.

36 In June 2011 the European University Association (EUA) made public the results of the report ‘Global University rankings and their impact’. This report has provided a comparative analysis of the methodologies used in the most popular rankings, analyzing the methodologies and indicating the current developments of alternatives to measure university quality and performance in all its dimensions and complexity. <www.eua.be/pubs/Global_University_Rankings_and_Their_Impact.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

37 Steva Harnad, ‘Open Access Scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise’ (2007) Preprint of Invited Keynote Address to 11th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics. Madrid, Spain, 25–27 June 2007 <arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0703/0703131.pdf> accessed 31 December 2014.

38 James M. Donovan and Carol A. Watson, ‘Citation Advantage of Open Access Legal Scholarship’( 2011) 11-07 UGA Legal Studies Research Paper < http://ssrn.com/abstract=1777090> accessed 31 December 2014.

39 <http://arxiv.org> accessed 31 December 2014.

40 <www.ssrn.com> accessed 31 December 2014.

41 <http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu> accessed 31 December 2014.

42 <http://repec.org> accessed 31 December 2014.

43 <http://mpra.repec> accessed 31 December 2014.

44 Paolo Guarda, ‘L'Open Access per la dottrina giuridica e gli Open Archives: verso un futuro migliore?’ (2012) 2 Informatica e diritto 225.

45 Roberto Caso and Giovanni Pascuzzi, ‘Valutazione dei prodotti scientifici nell'area giuridica e ruolo delle tecnologie digitali’ (2011) 7 Trento Law and Technology Research Group, Research Paper Series<http://eprints.biblio.unitn.it/archive/00002209> accessed 31 December 2014.

46 Rob van Gestel, Hans-W. Micklitz and Miguel Poiares Maduro, ‘Methodology in the New Legal World’ (2012) EUI Working Papers Law 2012/13, 18 <cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/22016/LAW_2012_13_VanGestelMicklitzMaduro.pdf?sequence=1> accessed 31 December 2014.