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Do rankings reflect research quality?

Frey, Bruno S; Rost, Katja (2010). Do rankings reflect research quality? Journal of Applied Economics, 13(1):1-38.

Abstract

Publication and citation rankings have become major indicators of the scientific worth of universities and determine to a large extent the career of individual scholars. Such rankings do not effectively measure research quality, which should be the essence of any evaluation. These quantity rankings are not objective; two citation rankings, based on different samples, produce entirely different results. For that reason, an alternative ranking is developed as a quality indicator, based on membership on academic editorial boards of professional journals. It turns out that the ranking of individual scholars based on that measure is far from objective. Furthermore, the results differ markedly, depending on whether research quantity or quality is considered. Thus, career decisions based on rankings are dominated by chance and do not reflect research quality. We suggest that evaluations should rely on multiple criteria. Public management should return to approved methods such as engaging independent experts who in turn provide measurements of research quality for their research communities.

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Economics
03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Business Administration
Dewey Decimal Classification:330 Economics
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
Scope:Discipline-based scholarship (basic research)
Language:English
Date:May 2010
Deposited On:04 Feb 2011 14:44
Last Modified:05 Jun 2025 01:37
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:1514-0326
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1514-0326(10)60002-5
Official URL:http://www.ucema.edu.ar/publicaciones/jae.html
Related URLs:http://ideas.repec.org/a/cem/jaecon/v13y2010n1p1-38.html
Other Identification Number:merlin-id:691
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