Can publication rate of different disciplines should be compared ?
Ajitanshu,
There have been a number of studies to try and develop a impact factors normalised to fields, with varying degrees of success. But this still doesn't really address your query about the quantity of articles produced per person in a given field. Ultimately, if funding decisions are to be made of the back of a decision, the fairest thing to do is to ignore the publication rates and focus on the quality of what has been produced and then to consider proposals based on what is being proposed.
If people's futures depend on our decisions then we should avoid making decisions based on metrics which we know are flawed. Judging based on the number of publications does not justice to anyone. It risks the further salami slicing of research, so we should make decisions based on assessment of quality. If this takes longer then so be it.
Regards,
Leon
It is unfair and flawed to compare publication rates between different disciplines. Even within disciplines there can be huge variations.
This is based on my personal experience having moved fields a couple of times over the years, while my wife has done likewise. The expectations on a PhD student to publish in the various fields varies hugely.
Equally, I'm not sure why anyone would need to do this.
Agreed Prof Black,
But publication rate and impact are the most common criteria of shortlisting the applicants especially if the limited number of openings are available during a multidisciplinary call. How to do scaling with-in and across the disciplines in these cases?
Provoking question. You might broaden it. Ask, how does research evolve across disciplines and across the world? What are the drivers? Cf. Preprint The Non-Ergodic Africa: A Perspective of Transport Research
Ajitanshu,
There have been a number of studies to try and develop a impact factors normalised to fields, with varying degrees of success. But this still doesn't really address your query about the quantity of articles produced per person in a given field. Ultimately, if funding decisions are to be made of the back of a decision, the fairest thing to do is to ignore the publication rates and focus on the quality of what has been produced and then to consider proposals based on what is being proposed.
If people's futures depend on our decisions then we should avoid making decisions based on metrics which we know are flawed. Judging based on the number of publications does not justice to anyone. It risks the further salami slicing of research, so we should make decisions based on assessment of quality. If this takes longer then so be it.
Regards,
Leon
Agreed Prof. Leon, but quantify quality across the different disciplines for comparison with due weightage to the publication rate by indexing may involve biasing until a common justifiable measure is developed. This may be based on average total number of publication with average impact for every field for setting the benchmark and quantifiable comparative indexing across the disciplines. I am unsure if any such study is available.
Dr. Ghoneim, you have raised a valid point, however, comparing candidature of the multidisciplinary candidates for the same call yet requires an explanation. How quality and publication rates can be quantified for comparison purpose, if we could have an "impact factor" or "research gate score" kind but valid universal measure with minimum flaws? what could be the basis for such an indicator. Academic performance index (API) used in India does not address this, as the basis for API is the same for all the disciplines.
Looking at citations of a specific article relative to the number of citations in the journal would give a rough indication. There are a few articles looking at this, but they often appear to be in biological sciences. I haven't seen a study comparing across disciplines.
However, there are still other factors which could affect this approach. Negative citations are still citations, (I know because my first ever citation 25 years ago was just that). Meanwhile review articles pick up more citations than average, even if they contain no NEW information.
Where there are multidisciplinary calls, I still feel that the only fair way to make decisions is with a multidisciplinary panel and lots of time. It is difficult, but the easy problems have often been solved already.
Thank you, Prof. Black.
I think negative citations are rare, however, factors like 'type of manuscript' could be identified and weighed for a general purpose ranking measure of multidisciplinary applicants, as you said its difficult but easy ............solved, anyway, thank you for your insightful answers.
Best Regards,
Ajitanshu
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