Departmental Publication Productivity and Reputational Quality: Disciplinary differences

Tertiary Education and Management - Using US national data, this study examines the levels and interactions between reputational rankings, average publications, citations, and external research...     

Publication productivity in doctoral research departments: Interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary factors

Examination of a national data set reporting departmental levels of publication productivity in 23 disciplines revealed very large differences between disciplines, with the mean departments in the most productive disciplines averaging more than 10 times the number of publications of the mean departments in the least productive disciplines. The differences within disciplines were also very large. Analyses of the characteristics of departments associated with productivity showed great variation across disciplines. Regression analyses indicated the importance of size and internal university support rather than federal support. Similar results are reported for the number of citations to the work of departments. The implications of these results for program review and the reputations of departments are reviewed.     

Continuity and change in the highest-ranked Ph.D.-granting departments of English, 1925–1982

Since 1925, six reputational rankings of Ph.D.-granting English departments have been published. Though almost two-thirds of such departments are located at public institutions, most of the highest-ranked departments throughout these years have been at private universities. In addition, of those highly ranked English departments in the most recent (1982) ranking that ranked higher than their universities, overall, most are private; of those highly ranked English departments that ranked lower than their universities, overall, all are public. There has been great stability since 1925 in the highest-ranked English departments, with few departments entering or leaving this group.     

我国高校“移植型”学科的发展困境及创新路径

＂移植型＂学科是高校决策者为了追求学科门类齐全而设置的与传统学科关联性很低、与学校创建理念不一致的学科,这些学科在办学条件、发展环境、发展后劲等方面存在诸多困境。为了突破发展的制约瓶颈,＂移植型＂学科需要在规模上有所控制,需要与传统优势学科有机的结合起来,走有特色的专业发展之路。     

Academic department prestige: A new measure based on the doctoral student labor market

Past rankings of academic departments have been based on a variety of factors including faculty publications, citations, and external perceptions. However well designed, these studies are conceptually flawed as means of assessing prestige. This paper views prestige as an ex ante condition related to an existing stratification system, rather than as an ex post result of productivity. As such, prestige can be measured by the academic department's ability to place its doctoral recipients. As a means of illustrating the use of this approach, an empirical analysis of accounting faculty placements from graduate schools in the United States was conducted. The resultant rankings were also evaluated for stability over time and against other program characteristics to illustrate the validity and the uniqueness of the measure.     

Instructor characteristics and students’ evaluation of teaching effectiveness: evidence from an Italian engineering school

This study examines the relationship between students’ evaluation of teaching effectiveness and the instructor's characteristics, based upon an original data set from an Italian university. Age and seniority (academic rank) are both found to affect negatively teaching evaluation, although the effect of rank depends heavily on the discipline. Profession-oriented disciplines are more poorly evaluated and exhibit stronger effects for rank; in the same disciplines, many courses are taught by non-faculty members, who are evaluated poorly. Gender is also found to be relevant, as it affects students’ evaluation of female instructors, although this result might be biased by the gender composition of classes. Past research outputs, as measured by an instructor's publication track record, has a positive impact on students’ evaluation of teaching effectiveness, although the rate of impact decreases with the amount of publications.     

Reputation and reality: ranking major disciplines in Australian universities

League tables that rank universities may use reputational measures, performance measures, or both. Each type of measure has strengths and weaknesses. In this paper, we rank disciplines in Australian universities both by reputation, using an international survey of senior academics, and with actual performance measures. We then compare the two types of measures to see how closely they match. The criterion we use for both sets of measures is ‘international academic standing’. We find a high correlation between the survey results and the various measures of research performance. We also find a correlation between the quality of student intake and the survey rankings, but the satisfaction levels of recent graduates do not correlate well with the rankings by academics. We then construct an overall measure of performance, which gives very similar rankings to the survey results, especially for the top-ranked institutions.

Faculty Diversity and Program Standing in Criminology and Criminal Justice: Findings for 31 Doctoral Programs in 2008

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety states that variance prepares systems for daily activities and unforeseeable events, suggesting that academic departments comprising faculty from multiple institutions and disciplines would better adapt to ever‐changing environments. This study outlines the disciplinary heritage of full‐time tenure‐stream faculty (N = 495) within criminology and criminal justice doctoral programs (N = 31), then examines the degree to which those programs adhere to Ashby's principle. The study ranks programs on both institutional and disciplinary variances, and how well the programs balance those competing interests. Findings revealed that programs were quite mixed on both variance measures but that variance rankings had little association with how peers rated programs for 2009, in that highly ranked programs appeared with similar frequencies at both the top and bottom of variance rankings. Thus, it appears national respect is not dependent on the variance of faculties with respect to institutional and disciplinary heritage.     

我国医学国家重点学科分布状况剖析

20多年来,我国医学国家重点学科的建设取得了一定的进展。医学国家重点学科在专业分布、院校分布、省际分布、地域分布等方面不均衡的现状正在逐步改善,但问题依然存在。我国医学重点学科发展不均衡,既有经济因素、政策因素,也有学科成长因素。改变这种不均衡,一是从政策上扶持,二是凝练重点学科,发挥特色优势,三是注重整合资源,建立优化体系,四是超前规划结构,均衡专业发展。     

Practices and opinions reported by coordinators of graduate programs

Information is presented about the organization of graduate studies, based on questionnaire responses of 582 coordinators of Canadian graduate programs. These coordinators, who were representative of disciplines and geographic regions, provided information about a wide range of matters, including enrolments, staff, admissions, supervision, research, publications, financial support, teaching experience, and completion rates and times. Many substantial differences were noted among the percentage frequencies of responses for departments classified by discipline and size. For example, students were perceived to choose their doctoral theses topics themselves much more frequently in education, social sciences, and humanities than in engineering, medical sciences, physical sciences, and biological sciences. Also, departments with smaller numbers of full-time graduate students tended to provide all doctoral students, with some teaching experience to a greater extent than did larger departments.     

Defining standards for rankings: An investigation of global university rankings according to the Berlin Principles

The role of universities as the engines of knowledge-based economies drives global internationalisation of higher education. This contributes to a competitive environment where higher education rankings indicate market value. Even though rankings are influential and are used a lot, ranking systems have been heavily critiqued. One of the problems is that there are few if any external checks on how rankings are created. The purpose of the study on which this article reports was to evaluate ranking systems. Within the scope of the study, we have sought to reveal to what extent current ranking systems comply with the Berlin Principles—prepared to create certain rules for rankings, and to ensure that rankings represent quality. A document analysis of publicly available documents online was carried out together with a review of printed and electronic publications on ranking systems. An evaluation form was prepared and used in this study for field experts to fill in. Findings show that ranking systems comply with the Berlin Principles in terms of methodology, transparency, and acceptability at a level that ranges from moderate to low. Overall, rankings do not consider differences in higher education and are not transparent about the processes by which rankings are developed. Rankings should for this reason be interpreted carefully and methodological weaknesses of rankings that can lead to false inferences should be recognised.     

“学科”范式下我国高等教育学科发展的困境与出路

与西方高等教育"问题研究"的取向不同,中国高等教育研究带有明显的学科指向性,是高等教育学科视野下的"学科研究",即建立高等教育学科并将各种高等教育问题纳入高等教育学及其分支学科框架中进行学科化研究。我国高等教育学科地位尽管已经确立,也有力地促进了高等教育研究的繁荣与发展,但其自身的发展还不够完善,还面临着一些现实困境,需要在学科的知识体系、方法体系和学科建制等方面进行借鉴与创新,促进高等教育学科不断走向成熟。     

Do performance‐based research funding systems affect research production and impact?

We study the potential impact of introducing performance‐based funding systems (PBFS) on national research systems, using information on the number of publications and their scientific impact (citations or publications in top‐ranked journals) for 31 countries over the period 1996–2016. The analysis is performed both at the aggregate level and looking separately at each of the six main scientific areas identified according to the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) classification. On average, PBFS are found to increase the number of publications, though the effect is only temporary and fades after a few years. Looking at the scientific impact, PBFS are found to have a negligible effect on excellence as measured by the share of articles published in the top journals, irrespective of the type of assessment adopted. On the contrary, PBFS have some influence on average research quality, as measured by the number of citations per paper normalised with respect to the field.     

海南省高等教育学科结构与产业结构的相关性实证研究

对海南建省以来高等教育学科专业结构与产业结构相关性进行实证分析,发现学科结构对于产业结构的影响具有多维、双向、非均衡特征:对应学科组与三次产业均具有显著正相关;法学、医学与第一产业具有显著正相关,农学、文学(艺术学、历史学)与第一产业具有显著负相关;法学、教育学、农学与第二产业具有显著正相关,理学、医学与第二产业具有显著负相关;法学、教育学、农学与第三产业具有显著正相关;学科回归系数存在较大差异。为了提高高等教育对海南自由贸易区(港)建设的匹配度与贡献度,建议根据区域产业政策,科学布局学科专业;增设农学特色高校,精准服务第一产业;改革人才培养模式,提高产业结构升级质量。     

Long‐term transformations: excavating privilege and diversity in the academy

The article presents a theoretical framework, ‘institutional phase theory’, that charts the process by which higher education faculties in the USA were broadened by race, gender, and to a certain extent class over the past 40 years. Drawing upon institutional ethnographies of three very different universities – a top‐ranked private university, a comprehensive urban university, and a top‐ranked public university, the authors provide examples from the third, the University of Michigan. By taking a historical and institutional approach, the authors chart the movement from accepting ‘exceptional’ women and faculty of colour on male terms to measurable changes in overly rigid structures and institution‐wide policies; expanded visions and boundaries in traditional disciplines; interdisciplinarity as a mark of the university; and transformed scholarly research in selected disciplines.     

“双一流”背景下学科评估排名变动特征分析

"双一流"背景下,学科建设是高校发展的重中之重。学科评估是高校学科发展建设的重要手段。为了解各学科近年来的发展状况,对最近两次评估结果进行了排名变动的特征分析。研究发现两次评估排名显著变化的学科门类为工学和医学;排名显著变动的学校集中于高水平院校及单科型普通院校。文章从评估指标和学科发展特点两方面,探寻两次学科评估结果出现显著变动的原因,结合排名显著变动情况,明晰我国当前学科建设进展,推进我国"一流学科"建设进程。     

2010中国比较教育学科建设研究年度报告

本报告以2010年全国教育类权威刊物《教育研究》和比较教育学专门期刊《比较教育研究》、《外国教育研究》、《全球教育展望》刊载的比较教育学科建设方面的论文为依据,通过分析其中的重要理论与方法问题,对2010年我国比较教育学科建设研究的一系列重要研究论题进行述评。2010年,中国比较教育学者在对比较教育学的宏观审视、中外比较教育思想、当今比较教育的时代背景、比较教育的理论基础、比较教育研究范式与方法论、比较教育研究的展开等方面的研究取得了卓越成果。     

An analysis of mobility in global rankings: making institutional strategic plans and positioning for building world-class universities

Since the start of the twenty-first century, university rankings have become internationalized. Global rankings have a variety of uses, levels of popularity and rationales and they are here to stay. An examination of the results of the current global ranking reveals that well-reputed world-class universities are amongst the top ranked ones. A major concern for university administrators in many parts of the world is how to use the global rankings wisely in their mid-term and long-term strategic planning for building their institutions into world-class universities. Four major global rankings have been developed: the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the World University Rankings, the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities and the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the most influential indicators in these global university rankings that will affect the rank mobility of an institution. Based on an analysis of correlation coefficients and K-means clustering, a model of strategic institutional planning for building a world-class university is proposed.     

How to measure research efficiency in higher education? Research grants vs. publication output

An ongoing debate in the literature on the efficiency of higher education institutions concerns the indicator for research output for use in empirical analysis. While several studies have chosen to use the number of publications as this indicator, others rely on the amount of research grants. The present study investigates whether both measures lead to a similar assessment of universities. In addition, the number of publications belonging to the 10% and 1% most frequently cited papers in the corresponding subject category and publication year are evaluated. We show that there is a high correlation of efficiency values between the estimations using these indicators. This correlation is slightly higher when the efficiency values result from a data envelopment analysis than when they are determined with a stochastic frontier analysis. The results of this study provide helpful guidelines for researchers evaluating the efficiency of universities and are valueable for decision-makers in science policy.     

学前教育学、普通教育学、高等教育学与教育学关系刍议——兼论教育学的未来

作为一门学科，教育学的发展历程非常独特。教育学产生之时，普通教育兴起，教育学随之以普通教育为研究对象，以师资培训和学生培养为学科旨趣而迅速发展起来，其结果是教育学长期被等同于普通教育学。事实上，就在普通教育学兴起之时，伴随着对幼儿教育的关注，学前教育学作为教育学的一部分也同时兴起。但正像学前教育长期被划分在正规国民教育之外、不属于义务教育范畴一样，学前教育学虽然名义上属于教育学的分支学科，但长期以来由于教育学几乎等同于普通教育学，学前教育学一直独自发展。二战以后，伴随世界范围内高等教育的蓬勃发展，高等教育研究迅速兴起。20世纪70年代末，东西方学者共同提出了高等教育学这一概念。随着高等教育学的最终出现并逐渐成熟，目前教育学已面临“三分天下”的困局。在未来的学科建设中，能否破解学科分裂的困局，有机地融合学前教育学、普通教育学与高等教育学，将成为教育学重建过程中走向学科统一的关键。