[csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

Tue May 31 22:39:24 CST 2011

hello all,yeah i agree, i'm cautiously optimistic this quality profile thing will be better than outright rankings, the real problem with these rankings was the effect they had on ECRs and the journals they publish in (i recently submitted an internal travel grant application for conference attendance and was advised to list journal rankings!) as well as the creation of new journals.it's disappointing that such a system got up in the first place but also gratifying that it's gone thanks in no small part to the efforts of individual academics and peak bodies who contested it.cheers,holly.

Dr. Holly Randell-Moon
Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies
Faculty of Arts
Macquarie University, NSW 2109
AustraliaEditor
Critical Race and Whiteness Studies
http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournalMediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the Twenty-First Century
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&edition_id=12018&title_id=9001&calctitle=1------"It annoys me that the biggest political icon from the last 30 years has been Margaret Thatcher, someone who tried to destroy the working class ... it freaks me out you know." - Noel Gallagher 

Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:48:41 +1000
From: guy.redden at sydney.edu.au
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

Message body

My understanding was that in the 2010 exercise the journal rankings in humanities areas were only used to inform a ‘general review process’. From what I have gleaned this means that the reviewers each had a couple of hundred items (book chapters, journal articles, books) to peer review in 2 months on top of their other workloads and they could pretty much review them as they wished (with reference to a notion of world standard). You can’t give a deep reading to this number of items in this time frame, so as far as I understand the journal ranking was one optional way of arriving at a rating of a journal article without giving it a reading, or much of one, i.e. the piece generally got the rating of the journal, or at least this was a default that could have been changed by peer review.

If journals get some kind of quality profile instead, reviewers could potentially use them in a similar way – just using the description instead of letter grade to inform their rating of the piece. It could still be used for a ‘circumstantial’ review of a journal article instead of reading it. That said I think it is certainly better for journals to be freed of the public ratings.

If anyone has a better insight into the review process I’d love the hear it.

Cheers,

Guy

On 31/05/11 3:00 PM, "Jeffrey Browitt" <Jeffrey.Browitt at uts.edu.au> wrote:

"the introduction of a journal quality profile, showing the most frequently published journals for each unit of evaluation" sounds like a bullshit statement to buy time while they figure out what to actually do to replace the ranking system they had. Sounds MontyPythonesque.

From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au [csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Rob Garbutt [rob.garbutt at scu.edu.au]

Sent: Tuesday, 31 May 2011 12:51 PM

To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au

Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the link.  I guess it sounds good but I'm wondering about 

the replacement for journal rankings.

Does anyone have an insight into what "the introduction of a journal 

quality profile, showing the most frequently published journals for 

each unit of evaluation" means?

Cheers,

Rob.

>

>Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 10:13:21 +0800

>From: "Jon Stratton" <J.Stratton at curtin.edu.au>

>Subject: [csaa-forum] removal of journal ramking system

>To: <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>

>

>    Hi Everybody,

>        In case anyone missed the announcement, yesterday Kim Carr 

>issued a press release relating to changes in the ERA scheme.  One 

>of the key changes is that journals will no longer be ranked--that 

>is, no longer be allocated A*, A, B, C rankings.  You can find the 

>ministerial statement here: 

>http://minister.innovation.gov.au/Carr/MediaReleases/Pages/IMPROVEMENTSTOEXCELLENCEINRESEARCHFORAUSTRALIA.aspx

>

>cheers,

>Jon

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