From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2018 17:54:56 -0700
The rule of physicists is that the observer disturbs and influences the
system observed. Take this as experimental corroboration of that principle?
Jim O'Donnell
ASU
From Times Higher Ed:
REF cycles ‘force academics to rush out poorer quality research’
Study finds 35 per cent increase in publications ahead of submission
deadline, but 12 per cent decline in citations
January 4, 20182
<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ref-cycles-force-academics-rush-out-poorer-quality-research#node-comments>
By Rachael Pells <https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/rachael-pells>
Twitter: @rachaelpells <http://www.twitter.com/rachaelpells>
An extensive study provides new backing for a claim long advanced by those
working in UK universities: that the research excellence framework forces
academics to produce scholarship in greater quantity but of poorer quality.
The paper (https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=
124083127024114088028119088016081087057013006006039043089016
069023002125074087087068056000031041111006030011006110104026
071086062074008052087011003090064108119007090013049091094123
025023016009102117082006009085119102094067075102108113025091
123066117&EXT=pdf) by academics at the London School of Economics, UCL, the
University of Oxford and the Free University of Berlin examines 190,963
publications that were submitted to the last REF and were published between
2008 and 2013, as well as 211,694 submissions to the REF’s predecessor, the
research assessment exercise, dating from between 2001 and 2007.
The authors find evidence that academics rushed outputs to
print in order to meet the deadline for submission: the number of
submissions published in 2007, ahead of the RAE deadline, was 35 per cent
higher than the total for 2008, the first year covered by the last REF.
However, outputs published shortly before the deadline appeared
to be of poorer quality, the authors say, since they received 12 per cent
fewer citations than those published the following year.
In addition, the UK’s share of papers published in low-impact
journals – taken as another proxy of quality – increases ahead of a
submission deadline, the authors find.
In all cases, the results were more pronounced in disciplines
that typically have a slower publication timescale, such as history,
compared to those with a quicker turnaround.
The findings emerge as UK universities prepare for the next
REF, which will be published in 2021.
Lead author Moqi Groen-Xu, assistant professor of finance at
the LSE, said that the findings suggested that there may be merit in
adopting different assessment windows for different fields.
“If you work in a fast-paced field such as computer science, an
evaluation every five years may not matter so much in terms of which
projects you pursue, or which journals you publish in,” she said. “But if
your projects can take more than five years, the REF can be really
disruptive.”
She told *Times Higher Education*: “If you give researchers too
much time, they operate under less pressure and may slack off, or are
reluctant to cut off ambitious projects that have not taken off despite a
lot of investment. If you give them too little time, they may stick to the
low-hanging fruit and more established research streams, and publish in
easier journals. It is unfortunate that designers of across-field
evaluations often forget that research areas differ in where the sweet spot
is.”
Commenting on the data, Peter Coveney, professor of physical
chemistry at UCL, said it was another sign that the UK “has now become
enslaved to the process of performance evaluation of academics”.
“Anyone familiar with the frustration of doing novel research
knows that results cannot be summoned to order,” he said. “And yet this
study shows conclusively that we see many more people entering publications
closer to the deadlines for these assessment exercises, with damaging
consequences on the quality of their work.”
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