[csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

[Mark Gibson]

ERA RIP.

Like others, though, I¹m uneasy about what the alternative might be. There
was always one thing to be said for ERA: it was an attempt to give
recognition to publication outputs rather than give credit only (or mainly)
according to funding inputs. The upside of that was obvious for a field like
cultural studies, where some of the best work has been produced with very
little funding support.

Graeme provides a useful insight into how some assessment of outputs might
survive without journal rankings (via Jon Stratton¹s last email). If his
description is right, then judgements will still be made about publication
quality. It will just be Œin camera¹ (and hopefully more nuanced), avoiding
the unintended consequences of public journal rankings.

Let¹s hope this system does work and that those making the judgements on
quality do so wisely. My worry is that it might also prove too hard (or
perhaps just too bloody time-consuming!) and they end up throwing up their
hands and going back to taking grant income as a proxy for research quality.
It would be so much easier.

Is it worse seeing the journal you publish in ranked B or C, or seeing
publication in general rated at only 6% of research performance (as it was
under HERDC)? It would be nice to think that we can do better than both, but
I don¹t think there¹s any certainty.

Mark

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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