Erratum: [csaa-forum] Re: ERA rankings

[Jon Stratton]

  Never thought that it would, Ariel.  ERA is a practice to produce claims about quality.  These claims can then be used by other agencies for their own purposes.  One of these purposes may well be to distinguish institutions on the basis of the quality claims made through the ERA practice in order to change the way that research funding dollars are allocated.  I note that the para from which you quoted continues: 'The Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) managed by DIISR will continue to inform research block grant allocations until such a time as the Government considers and implements any new mechansim.'  This does not discount the additional use of the ERA 'information' as further information to make more 'subtle' the block grant allocations.  Nor does the sentence you quote stop any futher usage of the information by any other body which believes that the 'information' gained by the ERA exercise has some objective validity and which wishes to bring researchers more into line with the claims for certain journals being high quality.
     To say something else about this exercise--and, of course, I am aware that similar exercises have been carried out, used and abused, in other countries--one problem that relates to journals themselves is that, inevitably, people will try to publish in those journals that have gained the highest rankings.  This inevitably leaches material from the lower ranked journals and, as a consequence, the exercise becomes self-fulfilling.
cheers,
Jon

________________________________

From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au on behalf of Ariel Heryanto
Sent: Mon 7/07/2008 1:34 PM
To: CSAA-Forum
Subject: Erratum: [csaa-forum] Re: ERA rankings


Oops, sorry. Of course I meant to write "you are NOT the first or only . . ."

Ariel Heryanto said the following on 7/07/2008 3:30 PM: 

	Hi Jon (and other members):
	

	You are the first or only person to have such reaction. Consultation Paper <http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/ERA_ConsultationPaper.pdf>  (ERA, June 2008) reads: "ERA will not determine the allocation of research block grants." (p. 6). If you have not, you  may like to  see the  entire paper hyperlinked above.

	Best,
	Ariel
	
	Jon Stratton said the following on 7/07/2008 3:01 PM: 

		 
		   Thanks for this, Ariel. <ponder>.  Ranking journals immediately opens the way for claims about the quality of a person's research dependent on what journals they publish in.  I find it hard to believe that, if it were found that the researchers in university x published predominantly in journals classified as C as compared to researchers in university y who published predominantly in journals classifed as A* and A, that a different valuation would be made about the quality of research at university x as compared to university y.  More, I find it hard to believe that the university administrators in university x would not start putting pressure on their researchers to publish in journals that are ranked higher because they would expect that, at some point, first prestige then funding would become issues.  Which makes me wonder, if Krishna is right, why she thinks this exercise is being perpetrated on us!
		cheers,
		Jon

________________________________

		From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au on behalf of Ariel Heryanto
		Sent: Mon 7/07/2008 12:52 PM
		To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
		Subject: [csaa-forum] Re: ERA rankings
		
		

		Dear All:
		
		Just in case useful. Last week at the ASAA Conference in Melbourne, I
		attended a special session on ERA, where Krishna Sen, Executive
		(Director of Humanities and Creative Arts, Australian Research Council)
		spoke. Two things that she emphasised more than once were (a) that this
		whole ERA excerise will not consider "impact", and (b) it will not in
		any way be connected to funding to universities (thus implying that no
		one in any immediate and material terms will be penalised for being
		ranked low). She also said, with some pride, these are two things that
		distinguish ERA from RQF.
		
		Ariel
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