[csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

[Jackie Cook]

Love Paul's qualitative twist! Try this:

Q: "How many high-profile quantitative research exercises on academic evaluation  have the Unit Evaluators completed and published in peer-refereed journals?"
A: "They're  really extraordinarily flexible, a product of sector-leading evaluative experiences..."

Expect to hear something very like that, very soon...

Jackie Cook
UniSA

From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au [mailto:csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Paul Magee
Sent: Wednesday, 1 June 2011 2:02 PM
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] removal of journal ranking system

Colleagues,

I'm still a little confused as to what a 'unit of evaluation' is. Is that a new term for 'academic'?

The way quality is so swiftly defined ('the introduction of a journal quality profile, showing the most frequently published journals') 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: They're 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 'how to publish in an A* journal' - 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 'A Journal' 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<http://www.jamesarvanitakis.net> <https://email.uws.edu.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=b8a0230cbcb44c06b284e6f5777c2892&URL=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
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