Towards complexity-sensitive book metrics for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output

Abstract

PurposeThis study investigates an approach to book metrics for research evaluation that takes into account the complexity of scholarly monographs. This approach is based on work sets – unique scholarly works and their within-work related bibliographic entities – for scholarly monographs in national databases for research output.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines bibliographic records on scholarly monographs acquired from four European databases (VABB in Flanders, Belgium; CROSBI in Croatia; CRISTIN in Norway; COBISS in Slovenia). Following a data enrichment process using metadata from OCLC WorldCat and Amazon Goodreads, the authors identify work sets and the corresponding ISBNs. Next, on the basis of the number of ISBNs per work set and the presence in WorldCat, they design a typology of scholarly monographs: Globally visible single-expression works, Globally visible multi-expression works, Miscellaneous and Globally invisible works.FindingsThe findings show that the concept “work set” and the proposed typology can aid the identification of influential scholarly monographs in the social sciences and humanities (i.e. the Globally visible multi-expression works).Practical implicationsIn light of the findings, the authors outline requirements for the bibliographic control of scholarly monographs in national databases for research output that facilitate the use of the approach proposed here.Originality/valueThe authors use insights from library and information science (LIS) to construct complexity-sensitive book metrics. In doing so, the authors, on the one hand, propose a solution to a problem in research evaluation and, on the other hand, bring to attention the need for a dialogue between LIS and neighbouring communities that work with bibliographic data.

Mapping Scholarly Books: Library Metadata and Research Assessment

“…Policies may prioritise specific genres, often without unambiguous definitions or standardised application across contexts. Bibliometricians have investigated these practices, highlighting the inconsistent interpretation of terms such as '(scholarly) monograph' by different stakeholders, including policymakers, academics, publishers, and librarians (Clemens et al, 2010;Dagienė, 2024;Sīle et al, 2021;Zuccala et al, 2018;Zuccala & Cornacchia, 2016).…”

Evaluation of the National Values Construction Program for National Resilience Institute Republic of Indonesia (LEMHANNAS RI)

“…The meaning of program evaluation itself is undergoing a process of consolidation. A well-known definition for program evaluation was put forward by Tayler, who said that program evaluation is a process to find out whether educational goals have been realized [17]. A more widely accepted definition was put forward by two evaluation experts, namely Soyez [18] and Stefanidis et al [19].…”

The challenge of assessing academic books: The UK and Lithuanian cases through the ISBN lens

“…However, those who have explored book metrics based on citations or publishers question the usefulness of ISBNs, arguing they are insufficiently rigorous identifiers to track citations or identify publishers (Williams et al, 2018;Zuccala et al, 2018;Zuccala and Cornacchia, 2016). Those interested in book publishers have suggested keeping the publisher names as recorded in library catalogues (Sīle et al, 2021;Zuccala et al, 2015), i.e., as provided by the publishers themselves on book copyright pages. It has been noted, however, that this option would lead to a dozen ways of recording even well-known publisher names (Tanner, 2016).…”