Four types of research in the humanities: Setting the stage for research quality criteria in the humanities

Ochsner, Michael; Hug, Sven E.; Daniel, Hans‐Dieter

doi:10.1093/reseval/rvs039

Cited by 30 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…With regard to the society, they bring a decisive contribution to the training of critical thinking as a prerequisite for democracy (Nussbaum, 2010) or to the critical examination of modern trends, such as technologisation (Luckmann, 2004); c) it is mainly individual (Finkenstaedt, 1990;Weingart et al, 1991), few publications are co-authored (Hemlin, 1996;Hellqvist, 2010) and research is often connected to the person conducting it (Hemlin and Gustafsson, 1996;Guetzkow et al, 2004); d) productivity is not that important for research performance in the SSH (Hemlin, 1993;Fisher et al, 2000;Hug et al, 2013); e) societal orientation is important, i.e. research is meant to influence society, direct interaction with society is part of SSH research (Weingart et al, 1991;Hellqvist, 2010;Hug et al, 2013); but f) the influence of society or other stakeholders outside of academia, such as external funding, on SSH research is evaluated negatively (Hemlin, 1993;Hug et al, 2013;Ochsner et al, 2013).…”

Section: Ssh Research Practices and Criteria For Research Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quality criteria must be developed bottom-up and reflect the notions of quality of the assessed scholars Ochsner et al, 2013) as they alone can judge what quality in the discipline actually is and they do see research quality predominantly as academic quality (Kekäle, 2002). To assure that all paradigms and research traditions as well as new ways of thinking are included, quality criteria should be developed surveying all scholars to be evaluated.…”

Section: Bottom-up Initiatives At the European Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The future of research assessment in the humanities: bottom-up assessment procedures

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research assessment in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) is delicate. Assessment procedures meet strong criticisms from SSH scholars and bibliometric research shows that the methods that are usually applied are ill-adapted to SSH research. While until recently research on assessment in the SSH disciplines focused on the deficiencies of the current assessment methods, we present some European initiatives that take a bottom-up approach. They focus on research practices in SSH and reflect on how to assess SSH research with its own approaches instead of applying and adjusting the methods developed for and in the natural and life sciences. This is an important development because we can learn from previous evaluation exercises that whenever scholars felt that assessment procedures were imposed in a top-down manner without proper adjustments to SSH research, it resulted in boycotts or resistance. Applying adequate evaluation methods not only helps foster a better valorization of SSH research within the research community, among policymakers and colleagues from the natural sciences, but it will also help society to better understand SSH's contributions to solving major societal challenges. Therefore, taking the time to encourage bottom-up evaluation initiatives should result in being able to better confront the main challenges facing modern society. This article is published as part of a collection on the future of research assessment.

show abstract

Section: Ssh Research Practices and Criteria For Research Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bottom-up Initiatives At the European Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

The future of research assessment in the humanities: bottom-up assessment procedures

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using 'research' as topic for the elements, the interviewees generated words or syntagms, so-called constructs, they associated with pairs of elements they were presented. At the same time, they rated the constructs that they had just generated according to how much they corresponded with each of the 17 elements (for a comprehensive list of the elements as well as an in-depth description of the method and its implementation, see Ochsner et al 2013).…”

Section: The Implementation Of the Framework: The Design Of The Projementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In all three disciplines, the quality dimension explained the biggest portion of the variance, which means that quality is the most important factor in structuring the scholars' conception of their research lives. In GLS, the time dimension was the second factor, whereas it was the third factor in the other two disciplines (for details on the method and the statistical results, see Ochsner et al 2013). Using these dimensions to interpret the linguistic data, we can see which constructs differentiate between, for example, 'good' and 'bad' research.…”

Section: The Implementation Of the Framework: The Design Of The Projementioning

confidence: 99%

Humanities Scholars’ Conceptions of Research Quality

Ochsner

Hug

Daniel

2016

Research Assessment in the Humanities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The assessment of research performance in the humanities is linked to the question of what humanities scholars perceive as 'good research'. Even though scholars themselves evaluate research on a daily basis, e.g. while reading other scholars' research, not much is known about the quality concepts scholars rely on in their judgment of research. This chapter presents a project funded by the Rectors' Conference of the Swiss Universities, in which humanities scholars' conceptions of research quality were investigated and translated into an approach to research evaluation in the humanities. The approach involves the scholars of a given discipline and seeks to identify agreed-upon concepts of quality. By applying the approach to three humanities disciplines, the project reveals both the opportunities and limitations of research quality assessment in the humanities: A research assessment by means of quality criteria presents opportunities to make visible and evaluate humanities research, while a quantitative assessment by means of indicators is very limited and is not accepted by scholars. However, indicators that are linked to the humanities scholars' notions of quality can be used to support peers in the evaluation process (i.e. informed peer review).

show abstract

“…'Developing and testing quality criteria for research in the humanities' focused on quality criteria and indicators that researchers in the humanities and social sciences consider important Ochsner et al 2013Ochsner et al , 2014. 'Measuring Research Output in Communication Sciences and Educational Sciences between international benchmarks, cultural differences and social relevance' studies the different profiles within and between different research institutions in communication sciences (Probst et al 2011).…”

Section: The 'Mesurer Les Performances De La Recherche' Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘Mesurer les Performances de la Recherche’ Project of the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) and Its Further Development

Loprieno

Werlen

Hasgall

et al. 2016

Research Assessment in the Humanities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 'Mesurer les performances de la recherche' project was funded through project-related subsidies of the Swiss Confederation allocated by the Swiss University Conference. Over the period 2008-2012, the project supported the exploration of new approaches to measure aspects of research that cannot be captured by conventional bibliometry. The project followed the Swiss Way to Quality in the Swiss universities (CRUS 2008), where the Rectors' Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS, since 1 January 2015 called swissuniversities) is committed to a number of quality principles to guide its quest for university system quality. These principles were formulated on the basis of the CRUS understanding that quality is driven by the following two dimensions: international competition among each university related to specific stakeholder needs and cooperation through complementary specialization and coalition building among Swiss universities. In the long run, these quality principles should contribute to Switzerlands ambition to become a leading place for research, education and knowledge transfer. The project supported accounting for research performance rather than controlling the involved researchers. It also aimed to develop useful tools for the internal quality assessment procedure of Swiss universities according to the guidelines of the Swiss University Conference, devise strategies for Swiss universities and critique academic rankings. The project was successfully finalized by the end of 2012. As of 2013, the 'Performances de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales' programme is up and running and pursues mainly the same goals as the previous project, but with a more specific focus on the humanities and social sciences. This project aims to develop instruments that will foster the visibility of research performance by scholars in the humanities and social sciences in terms of highlighting strengths of different research units located at Swiss universities. It will also strengthen a multiplicity-oriented approach to research evaluation, which aims to support the diversity that characterizes research in the social sciences and humanities.

show abstract

Four types of research in the humanities: Setting the stage for research quality criteria in the humanities

Cited by 30 publications

References 43 publications

The future of research assessment in the humanities: bottom-up assessment procedures

The future of research assessment in the humanities: bottom-up assessment procedures

Humanities Scholars’ Conceptions of Research Quality

The ‘Mesurer les Performances de la Recherche’ Project of the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) and Its Further Development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About