[csaa-forum] ERA rankings

[Lelia GREEN]

Dear Jon and all
 
Thanks for raising this, Jon.
 
In fact, the ARC press release of 12 June indicates that institutions have until 24 July to respond to the draft list. (See below). Institutions will probably have closing dates for internal submissions that are a week or two before this date -- so this is a job for the coming week!
 
Sadly, both Cultural Studies journals and Communications journals appear to have suffered as a result of not being clearly aligned with either a Humanities or a Social Sciences focus. In addition to the list of B graded journals in your post can be added the internationally-recognised Australian Journal of Communication (which the Australian Business Deans' Council graded as A), and M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture. The only Australian journal in our field to be recognised as higher than B appears to be Media International Australia (A*).  
 
I agree with Jon that this is a matter that should be raised urgently with our University research co-ordinators since it would be inappropriate to categorise all Australian journals in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies (apart from MIA) as publishing "only a few papers of very high quality".
 
Further, this discussion and the fact that we had little notice of the outcomes prior to the 12 June indicates that we should work towards a national forum of Humanities and Arts Deans so that we could have had input into the national discussions equivalent to that enjoyed by the Business Deans. (They have a national meeting twice a year to impact upon policy affecting their discipline areas.)
 
Thanks again 
 
Lelia
 

Thursday, 12 June 2008

 

 

ARC seeks sector's views on journal rankings for ERA initiative

 

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has today launched a consultation period on a draft journal rankings list, one of the indicators that will be used on a discipline-specific basis to evaluate research as part of the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative.

 

Research outlets are ranked into four tiers (A*, A, B and C) on the basis of the overall quality that each has for a particular discipline. 

 

ARC Chief Executive Officer, Professor Margaret Sheil said that this is the second phase on the journal rankings.  In late 2007, the four Learned Academies and a number of peak bodies, undertook the initial journal ranking exercise to develop this draft for their relevant disciplines.  

 

"More than 19,000 unique peer reviewed journals have been identified to form the draft list of ranked journals.

 

"It is worth noting that journals of Australian origin are well represented in the top tiers of the draft rankings.

 

"This is an important process to ensure that the higher education and research sectors will have confidence in the rankings that will be used as part of the ERA initiative," Professor Sheil said.

 

Submissions will close on Thursday 24 July, 2008.  More information is available from the ARC website: http://www.arc.gov.au/era/indicators.htm <https://staffmail.ecu.edu.au/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.arc.gov.au/era/indicators.htm> 

 

The ARC will release the final journal ranking list once all submissions have been considered.


________________________________

From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au on behalf of Jon Stratton
Sent: Sun 06/07/2008 10:30
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Subject: [csaa-forum] ERA rankings


 
  Hi Everybody,
      If you haven't already, may I please suggest that you look at the journal rankings that are planned to be used for the federal government's Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise.  The list of journals and the rankings can be found at:  http://www.arc.gov.au/xls/ERA_Journal_Ranking_Flatfile.xls <https://email.curtin.edu.au/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.arc.gov.au/xls/ERA_Journal_Ranking_Flatfile.xls>  .  There are four categories, A*, A, B. C.  C is therefore the lowest ranking.  You might particularly want to note that Continuum, which is the only international cultural studies journal based in Australia, and is the CSAA-linked journal, has a B ranking.  This places it well down in importance and means that articles published in it will not be regarded by the ERA exercise as being of as much worth as compared to if the journal are ranked at A* or A. 
       Journal of Intercultural Studies is also ranked as a B, as are Social Identities, and Borderlands.  Third Text is a C as is New Formations.  As a generalisation, it seems to me that journals based in the US or Britain, and journals which tend towards publishing less innovative and less controversial (and this includes political) articles, tend to be given the higher rankings.  
     At present submissions are being taken for additions to the journal list and for changes in ranking.  All submissions have to be sent through universities.  If you have not been contacted by the R&D area of your university may I suggest that you contact them, find out how to register a submission in your university and do so.  The closing date for submissions is towards the end of July.
thanks for your time,
Jon  


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