[csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

[Paul Magee]

Colleagues,

I¹m still a little confused as to what a Œunit of evaluation¹ is. Is that a
new term for Œacademic¹?

The way quality is so swiftly defined (Œthe introduction of a journal
quality profile, showing the most frequently published journals¹) in terms
of quantity also confuses me. Do you think we could do it the other way
round, so that whenever people ask us to quantify a phenomenon we respond in
terms of its qualities?  Q: How many plastic spacemen does it come with? A:
They¹re really extraordinarily flexible, a product of sector-leading
injection moulding.

Best

P


Dr Paul Magee

Associate Professor of Poetry
Faculty of Arts and Design
University of Canberra
ACT 2601
02 6201 2402

Australian Government Higher Education (CRICOS)
Registered Provider number: #00212K





On 1/06/11 11:11 AM, "James Arvanitakis" <J.Arvanitakis at uws.edu.au> wrote:

> Hey everyone
>  
> I am also pleased with this ­ though always nervous about what is around the
> corner
>  
> The journal ranking system has been devastating to emerging researchers.
>  
> Friends and colleagues have asked me Œhow to publish in an A* journal¹ ­ and
> feel rejected if they fail. I have always responded that good quality research
> should be published in the appropriate journal and the rankings are arbitrary
> ­ and will change. This was confirmed to me by a publisher I met while in
> Europe who was literally laughing at the rankings system. He said some of his
> weakest and moribund journals had received A rating and had been revived from
> the decision ­ but could find no reason why this was the case. Meanwhile,
> excellent journals get a low ranking and people have chosen to ignore them.
>  
> We then compared an ŒA Journal¹ that averages an average of 3.4 readers to a
> newspaper piece based on our research that has 10,000 reads: how should these
> compare?
>  
> While I have been lucky to be surrounded by excellent mentors and have
> supported my decision to ignore rankings, I have seen senior management at
> certain universities base their entire decision-making around the ranking
> system. Maybe if we are ever faced with such a system, we can agree to boycott
> it.
>  
> Thanks to those who put up a good fight on this
>  
> 
> James Arvanitakis, PhD
> 
> Senior Lecturer - School of Humanities and Languages
> Head of Program - Dean Scholars
> Research member - Centre for Cultural Research
> Member of the Ally Program for GLBIT students
> Fellow - Centre for Policy Development
> 
> www.jamesarvanitakis.net
> <https://email.uws.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=b8a0230cbcb44c06b284e6f5777c2892&UR
> L=http%3a%2f%2fwww.jamesarvanitakis.net>
> 
> Harper Lee: Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but
> you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
> 
> University of Western Sydney
> Rm UG05, Building U
> Kingswood Campus
> Ph: +61-47360391
> Mob: +61-438-454-127
> www.uws.edu.au 
> <https://email.uws.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=b8a0230cbcb44c06b284e6f5777c2892&UR
> L=http%3a%2f%2fwww.uws.edu.au>
>  
> 
>  
>  
> 
> 
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