The impact of unproductive and top researchers on overall university research performance

Unlike competitive higher education systems, non-competitive systems show relatively uniform distributions of top researchers and low performers among universities. In this study, we examine the impact of unproductive and top faculty members on overall research performance of the university they belong to. Furthermore, we analyze the potential relationship between research productivity of a university and the indexes of concentration of unproductive and top researchers. Research performance is evaluated using a bibliometric approach, through publications indexed on the Web of Science between 2004 and 2008. The set analyzed consists of all Italian universities active in the hard sciences.     

A ‘power law’ based method to reduce size-related bias in indicators of knowledge performance: An application to university research assessment

The knowledge production provided by universities is essential to sustaining a country’s long-term economic growth and international competitiveness. Many nations are thus driving to create sustainable and effective funding environments. The evaluation of university knowledge, productivity and research quality becomes critical, with ever increasing share of public funding allocated on the basis of research assessment exercises. Nevertheless, the existing methods to assess the universities’ knowledge production are often affected by limits and biases, extensively discussed in the scientific literature.In this paper we study how to reduce the effect of size-related bias due to university size on the indicators of knowledge performance used in evaluation exercises. We propose an innovative utilization of the scale-free property of the power laws as a scaling relationship, to normalize research productivity indicators, and provide results independent by the university size. Our method has evident policy implications and gives a contribution for the future design of assessment exercises.We apply our findings in a recent Italian research assessment exercise.     

档案信息服务社会化绩效评价指标体系构建策略

为了科学构建公共档案馆档案信息服务绩效评价指标体系,本文根据公共档案馆机构的性质和职能,以及信息服务社会化的特点,运用彼得·德鲁克“非营利组织自我评估工具”理论、关键业绩指标法（KPI）、证据证明法分别构建了公共档案馆信息服务社会化绩效评价的一级指标、二级指标和三级指标。     

When the road to academic success goes through the library: A case study at the University of Seville

University libraries are adapting to the new study, learning, and research needs of the university communities that they serve. In an environment of economic tweaking, a trend toward the performance of investments, the progressive digitization of resources and services, and easy access to information in digital format, universities are compelled to show that they are still cost-efficient for the institutions that they serve; in this case, the University. This paper will use a robust methodology based on multiple indicators and a broad database that takes into consideration other control variables of a socio-demographic, economic, and academic nature to analyze the impact that the library circulation service can have on student academic performance. Our results show that there is a clear positive relationship between the number of library loans that a student takes out and the various academic performance indicators used. Furthermore, the more intense the use that students make of the system, both in terms of time and renewals, the greater the academic success that they attain. Lastly, measures are proposed to exploit this positive synergy and realize university excellence.     

Copyright piracy on the university campus: Trends and lessons from the software and music industries

Abstract

In a 1996–7 survey of students at three public universities and one private liberal arts college, Chiang and Assane (2002) found that 53 per cent of the sample admitted to software piracy. Though this is a staggering percentage, over the past five years the public focus on copyright piracy among young technology savvy users, particularly university students, has shifted from software to music piracy via file sharing and CD reproduction. This paper studies the characteristics of these industries along with recent technological advances affecting them. We analyze how economic incentives to reduce piracy on the university campus have been successful for the software indus‐ try, and how the lack of such incentives in the music industry has caused a larger piracy issue today. Based on these findings, we discuss possible solutions to reducing music piracy on the university campus.     

Measuring the academic reputation through citation networks via PageRank

The objective assessment of the prestige of an academic institution is a difficult and hotly debated task. In the last few years, different types of university rankings have been proposed to quantify it, yet the debate on what rankings are exactly measuring is enduring.To address the issue we have measured a quantitative and reliable proxy of the academic reputation of a given institution and compared our findings with well-established impact indicators and academic rankings. Specifically, we study citation patterns among universities in five different Web of Science Subject Categories and use the PageRank algorithm on the five resulting citation networks. The rationale behind our work is that scientific citations are driven by the reputation of the reference so that the PageRank algorithm is expected to yield a rank which reflects the reputation of an academic institution in a specific field. Given the volume of the data analysed, our findings are statistically sound and less prone to bias, than, for instance, ad–hoc surveys often employed by ranking bodies in order to attain similar outcomes. The approach proposed in our paper may contribute to enhance ranking methodologies, by reconciling the qualitative evaluation of academic prestige with its quantitative measurements via publication impact.     

How good is a model based on bibliometric indicators in predicting the final decisions made by peers?

This paper shows how bibliometric models can be used to assist peers in selecting candidates for academic openings.Several studies have demonstrated that a relationship exists between results from peer-review evaluations and results obtained with certain bibliometric indicators. However, very little has been done to analyse the predictive power of models based on bibliometric indicators. Indicators with high predictive power will be seen as good instruments to support peer evaluations. The goal of this study is to assess the predictive power of a model based on bibliometric indicators for the results of academic openings at the level of Associado and Catedrático at Portuguese universities. Our results suggest that the model can predict the results of peer-review at this level with a reasonable degree of accuracy. This predictive power is better when only the scientific performance is assessed by peers.     

The Combination of Text Classifiers Using Reliability Indicators

The intuition that different text classifiers behave in qualitatively different ways has long motivated attempts to build a better metaclassifier via some combination of classifiers. We introduce a probabilistic method for combining classifiers that considers the context-sensitive reliabilities of contributing classifiers. The method harnesses reliability indicators—variables that provide signals about the performance of classifiers in different situations. We provide background, present procedures for building metaclassifiers that take into consideration both reliability indicators and classifier outputs, and review a set of comparative studies undertaken to evaluate the methodology.     

The dispersion of research performance within and between universities as a potential indicator of the competitive intensity in higher education systems

Higher education systems in competitive environments generally present top universities, that are able to attract top scientists, top students and public and private financing, with notable socio-economic benefits in their region. The same does not hold true for non-competitive systems. In this study we will measure the dispersion of research performance within and between universities in the Italian university system, typically non-competitive. We will also investigate the level of correlation that occurs between performance in research and its dispersion in universities. The findings may represent a first benchmark for similar studies in other nations. Furthermore, they lead to policy indications, questioning the effectiveness of selective funding of universities based on national research assessment exercises. The field of observation is composed of all Italian universities active in the hard sciences. Research performance will be evaluated using a bibliometric approach, through publications indexed in the Web of Science between 2004 and 2008.     

An inquiry into the availability of Canadian fiction in U.S. libraries with special attention to the influence of reviews

In order to investigate the availability of Canadian fiction in U.S. libraries and the influence of reviews in U.S. sources on this availability, 182 “Novels” that had been reviewed in Canadian Book Review Annual were searched in the OCLC data base and in Book Review Index. Findings suggest that Canadian fiction is widely owned by U.S. libraries only when a work has been reviewed in U.S. sources—especially Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Furthermore, results suggest that Canadian fiction is normally reviewed in U.S. sources only when the work is available in a U.S. edition. Anomalies are noted and suggestions are made for further research.     

Analysis of the SEO visibility of university libraries and how they impact the web visibility of their universities

This article comparatively analyzes the web visibility of 20 libraries corresponding to the top 10 universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the 10 largest Spanish universities, and explores whether a correlation exists between the web visibility of libraries and of their respective universities. To study web visibility, a search engine optimization (SEO) tool called Sistrix Toolbox was used. It analyzes a large amount of data, the most notable of which is the visibility index, which combines different data indicators to analyze web visibility. The results are checked with Xovi, another SEO tool that offers its own visibility index. Both tools allow us to observe similar trends in the visibility of library websites.The results show that university library visibility is generally low and that there is no direct correlation between the visibility index of libraries and that of their universities. Some revealing exceptions were identified, in which libraries have made significant contributions to the web visibility of their universities. The results would suggest that higher education institutions need to implement SEO strategies in order to increase their visibility more effectively.     

Ranking economists on the basis of many indicators: An alternative approach using RePEc data

In economics the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) network has become an essential source for the gathering and the spread of both existing and new economic research. Furthermore, it is currently the largest bibliometric database in economic sciences containing 33 different indicators for more than 30,000 economists. Based on this bibliographic information RePEc calculates well-known rankings for authors and academic institutions. We provide some cautionary remarks concerning the interpretation of some provided bibliometric measures in RePEc. Moreover, we show how individual and aggregated rankings can be biased due to the employed ranking methodology. In order to select key indicators describing and assessing research performance of scientist, we propose to apply principal component analysis in this data-rich environment. This approach allows us to assign weights to each indicator prior to aggregation. We illustrate the approach by providing a new overall ranking of economists based on RePEc data.     

多角色协作——构建农林院校图书馆服务农村信息平台

针对目前农林院校图书馆为农村提供信息服务中所出现的主要问题,提出在农林院校图书馆和农民之间建立一条畅通而高效的信息服务渠道。文章构建了一个联合图书馆信息咨询馆员、农林专家、技术人员、农林院校学生、农民大学生等多角色协作的农村信息服务平台,并详细分析了平台的角色、功能,提供了平台的基本模型,同时为农村信息服务平台协作的发展指出了方向。     

高校图书馆数字化建设的探索与实践——以天津商业大学“诺贝尔经济学获奖者资源库”为例

信息时代,全国各高等学校图书馆都加快了数字资源建设的步伐,而数字资源建设也成为评价一所高校图书馆信息资源建设的重要标志。为推动高校的教学科研和天津市的经济发展,天津市19所高校积极参与天津市高校数字化图书馆建设项目,构建了天津高校文献信息保障体系。借此契机,天津商业大学图书馆结合本馆特色文献资源,以办学特点和地方经济需求为选题依据,建设了诺贝尔经济学获奖者资源库,为天津商业大学乃至天津市的学科建设和教学科研的快速发展提供了有力支持。     

Scholarly Use of Web-based Information Resources and Services in University Libraries in Kerala (India)

Abstract

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the use of web-based information services in university libraries in Kerala, India.

Design/methodology/approach: A survey method was used for the collection of data. The questionnaire method was used to collect data for the study. The study was conducted among the research scholars of four selected universities in Kerala, India.

Findings: This study has analyzed the services and resources in the libraries which are provided through the medium of the internet and also the usage patterns of web information services by the scholars of the selected universities. The analysis reveals that most of the university libraries have implemented web-based information services. However, the extent of usage is not to the expected level and this is due to the lack of sufficient awareness about the usage methods of web resources and services. With the help of proper user education and training programs, the present situation can be ameliorated. The findings of this study can be helpful to the authorities to improve the services in the libraries.

Originality/value: Proper use of library resources is essential for scholars to bring forth productive research outputs. This study provides recommendations for enhancing web-based services in university libraries in Kerala to provide better services to the users.     

Credibility-inspired ranking for blog post retrieval

Credibility of information refers to its believability or the believability of its sources. We explore the impact of credibility-inspired indicators on the task of blog post retrieval, following the intuition that more credible blog posts are preferred by searchers. Based on a previously introduced credibility framework for blogs, we define several credibility indicators, and divide them into post-level (e.g., spelling, timeliness, document length) and blog-level (e.g., regularity, expertise, comments) indicators. The retrieval task at hand is precision-oriented, and we hypothesize that the use of credibility-inspired indicators will positively impact precision. We propose to use ideas from the credibility framework in a reranking approach to the blog post retrieval problem: We introduce two simple ways of reranking the top n of an initial run. The first approach, Credibility-inspired reranking, simply reranks the top n of a baseline based on the credibility-inspired score. The second approach, Combined reranking, multiplies the credibility-inspired score of the top n results by their retrieval score, and reranks based on this score. Results show that Credibility-inspired reranking leads to larger improvements over the baseline than Combined reranking, but both approaches are capable of improving over an already strong baseline. For Credibility-inspired reranking the best performance is achieved using a combination of all post-level indicators. Combined reranking works best using the post-level indicators combined with comments and pronouns. The blog-level indicators expertise, regularity, and coherence do not contribute positively to the performance, although analysis shows that they can be useful for certain topics. Additional analysis shows that a relative small value of n (15–25) leads to the best results, and that posts that move up the ranking due to the integration of reranking based on credibility-inspired indicators do indeed appear to be more credible than the ones that go down.     

TARGET模型在高校信息素养教育中的应用研究

在学习动机视角下,高校信息素养教育存在学生缺乏学习兴趣、缺乏主动性、缺乏信心等问题。TARGET是一种激发学生学习动机的教学模式,论文尝试将TARGET模型运用到高校信息素养教育实践中,构建一种基于TARGET的高校信息素养教育模式,以期解决信息素养教育中的问题,为高校息素养教育的提供新思路.     

The bibliometric quotient (BQ), or how to measure a researcher’s performance capacity: A Bayesian Poisson Rasch model

Regarding evaluation of individual researchers, the bibliometric indicators approach has been increasingly discussed recently, but there are some problems involved with it: construct definition, measurement errors, level of scale, dimensionality, normalization. Based on a psychometric model, the Rasch model, we developed a measuring scale for the theoretical construct ‘researcher’s performance capacity,’ defined as the competency of a researcher to write influential papers. The aim was a scale that is one-dimensional and continuous, is applicable to bibliometric count variables, and takes measurement errors into account. In this paper we present the psychometric model (Bayesian Poisson Rasch model, BPR) and its assumptions and examine the behavior of the model under various sampling conditions. For a sample of N?=?254 researchers in a quantitative methodology section of an undisclosed German academic society for social sciences, using the BPR model we developed a scale that we named ‘Bibliometric Quotient’ (BQ, M?=?100, SD?=?15) (following the term ‘intelligence quotient’). The scale fulfills most of the test-theoretical requirements (e.g., high reliability α_t?=?.96, no differential item functioning except for academic age and German states) and in addition allows researchers to be ranked. Women’s BQ scores were 8.3 points lower on the scale than men’s BQ scores.     

Ranking dynamics and volatility

Scientific journals are ordered by their impact factor while countries, institutions or researchers can be ranked by their scientific production, impact or by other simple or composite indicators as in the case of university rankings. In this paper, the theoretical framework proposed in Criado, R., Garcia, E., Pedroche, F. & Romance, M. (2013). A new method for comparing rankings through complex networks: Model and analysis of competitiveness of major European soccer leagues. Chaos, 23, 043114 for football competitions is used as a starting point to define a general index describing the dynamics or its opposite, stability, of rankings. Some characteristics to study rankings, ranking dynamics measures and axioms for such indices are presented. Furthermore, the notion of volatility of elements in rankings is introduced. Our study includes rankings with ties, entrants and leavers. Finally, some worked out examples are shown.