It is very common to hear people referring to “academic excellency” (excelencia académica). It is something we are supposed to aspire to, something we set as our ideal goal. A goal shared among many disciplines. However, we know these disciplines often expose astonishing differences in their interests and needs, their roles in the society, their methodologies, points of view and perspectives about life and everything. So, what do we mean by “academic excellence”? do we really mean the same? is there an "academic dimension" with the power to bond disciplines independently of evertything else; independently of what they are?
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Bortolus,
An interesting question. I thought I had left an answer here some time back, but I did not find it after looking in again. Let me try to sketch what I wrote before.
A good place to start, I think, is to observe the tradition of translation on which the common (international) usage of "academic excellence," depends. Calls for dedication to excellence are not uncommon in western universities, and this has to do with the fact that "excellence" is one of the words traditionally used to translate the ancient Greek, arete, which is also often translated by use of the word "virtue."
The original moral paradigm of the ancient Greek arete, was the virtue of the warrior, as in Homer and Achilles. The word was subsequently translated into Latin, by use of the root, vir, meaning man or manly, in consequence, virtue, in English, shares a Latin root with many words suggestive of male virtues, or manliness, as e.g., virility. But the ancient Greek philosophers had already generalized the idea beyond the virtue of the warrior, and it also had a general usage, suggestive of what is fitting, or good of its kind. In accordance with this usage, it is the virtue of a knife to be sharp, ie., to be able to cut, and virtue in the steed or horse is "swiftness in the race."
It is from this background that the ideas of moral and intellectual virtues arose, and with them the ideal of human excellence. What we may ask does it mean to be good in the human kind? Aristotle developed the notion of virtue in his Ethics, where the cultivation of the virtues implies steering a course between excesses and defects. One paradigm here in courage. Courage is considered a "golden mean" between two extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness. In order to cultivate the virtue of courage, one must, in the first place avoid the extreme to which one is most inclined --here either to run away or to confront dangers unnecessarily. The development of the virtues, overall, amounts to the development of moral character. There are many other listed virtues in Aristotle.
It seems clear that historically, there are many variations on the idea of virtue or excellence, and some are perhaps less true to the ancient Greek origins. But it strikes me that this tradition of translation in a good place to start.
H.G. Callaway
I need a hand here. If you think the question is not clear, help me to improve it please.
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Bortolus,
An interesting question. I thought I had left an answer here some time back, but I did not find it after looking in again. Let me try to sketch what I wrote before.
A good place to start, I think, is to observe the tradition of translation on which the common (international) usage of "academic excellence," depends. Calls for dedication to excellence are not uncommon in western universities, and this has to do with the fact that "excellence" is one of the words traditionally used to translate the ancient Greek, arete, which is also often translated by use of the word "virtue."
The original moral paradigm of the ancient Greek arete, was the virtue of the warrior, as in Homer and Achilles. The word was subsequently translated into Latin, by use of the root, vir, meaning man or manly, in consequence, virtue, in English, shares a Latin root with many words suggestive of male virtues, or manliness, as e.g., virility. But the ancient Greek philosophers had already generalized the idea beyond the virtue of the warrior, and it also had a general usage, suggestive of what is fitting, or good of its kind. In accordance with this usage, it is the virtue of a knife to be sharp, ie., to be able to cut, and virtue in the steed or horse is "swiftness in the race."
It is from this background that the ideas of moral and intellectual virtues arose, and with them the ideal of human excellence. What we may ask does it mean to be good in the human kind? Aristotle developed the notion of virtue in his Ethics, where the cultivation of the virtues implies steering a course between excesses and defects. One paradigm here in courage. Courage is considered a "golden mean" between two extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness. In order to cultivate the virtue of courage, one must, in the first place avoid the extreme to which one is most inclined --here either to run away or to confront dangers unnecessarily. The development of the virtues, overall, amounts to the development of moral character. There are many other listed virtues in Aristotle.
It seems clear that historically, there are many variations on the idea of virtue or excellence, and some are perhaps less true to the ancient Greek origins. But it strikes me that this tradition of translation in a good place to start.
H.G. Callaway
I agree whit you Dr H.G. Callaway
Good question Dr. Bortolus.
Regards..
Academic excellence is manifested in high quality of teaching, research and mentoring students.
Dear Senad Becirovic
please share with us any method or tool you use/know to measure (high) "quality" (of teaching, research or mentoring students). Some people determine the "quality" of a scientists by using the bibliometric H index. Would you agree with that?
Regards
AB
I would like to thank very much Prof Callaway for such an inspiring intro. Thank you very much Professor!
Please note there is this other related question I posed some days ago:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Since_when_our_REPUTATION_is_given_only_by_our_BIBLIOMETRIC_SCORING
, which we could unify with this one or discuss it separately, as you wish.
Ale
Dear C.L.K. Many thanks for your clarifying input.
I agree with you that the meaning of excellence "varies depending on the field", and also among cultures and/or countries. But it seems to me that most -virtual and actual- academic societies worldwide constantly tend to ignore these variations. For instance RG, explicitly forces/reduces the "reputation" of academics to their bibliometric scoring (mostly RG and H indexes) and leaving aside not only many other professional skills and scores, but also all other personal virtues. This reductionist perspective will inevitably lead to a massive (worldwide) misunderstanding of what academic excellence and all its variations are.
AB
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Bortolus & readers,
Perhaps you could explain what exactly a "bibliometric score" amounts to in some detail? What exactly is such a score supposed to measure, and how is it calculated?
Certainly, I think that reductionism is to be resisted, here as elsewhere. Is there any way in which such scores could be used to resist the tendency toward manipulation of recognition and reputation? In degree, these seem to be media effects--where any given individual or work will be constantly compared to world-wide media paradigms. The prestige of great and famous universities is sometimes used as a means attract positive attention to particular figures or to distract attention from those not benefiting from such support, etc. I think there is a regular cult of the manipulation of recognition--often politically motivated. It often aims at acquisition of institutional support for particular academic plans, projects or published works. It seems the great corporate institutions often encourage various bandwagon effects. Of course, it is very difficult to factor out such effects, though they are no doubt present.
In the end, academic excellence would seem to be a qualitative matter and only distantly related to proposed measurements of it. I think we chiefly learn to live with the related problems by focusing on good quality work as we encounter it.
H.G. Callaway
Dear Callaway and readers,
Wise words you said. I agree. Thank you very much again for sharing your experience.
Concerning your question about what a bibliometric scoring is: the prestige and reputation of a scientist (important to have in mind I´m biologist) is usually depicted by reviewers/examinations with a few indexes called "bibliometric" because they mix factors associated to publications. Like for instance, the impact factor of the journals in which you publish, the H index associated to a given person and the number of citations your papers and books have. The most famous and commonly used of these bibliometric indexes are the Impact Factr and the Hirsch index (H index).
The Impact Factor (IF) of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years.
In the mid-1950s Eugene Garlfield (IF creator) stated that following the life of an article, one could follow the development of his idea and the uses it was given (i.e. its impact on society). He later concluded (the fallacy) that the best way to follow the life of an article and quantify its impact is by indexing its citations: if we have an interesting article that quotes certain authors, then the articles that quote those same authors will surely be the same interest." Intuition tells us this is a right reasoning, but the reason tell us the opposite.
H INDEX (Hirsch Index, named after J. Hirsch) Provides a complementary evaluation exclusively related to the authors of a paper, not to the journals in which the paper is published. An H = 12, means that the person has 12 papers cited at least 12 times. It also means that the rest of the papers published by that person were cited less than 12 times.
"In a world of limited resources, such quantification (even if potentially distasteful) is often needed for evaluation and comparison purposes,“ J. E. Hirsch. 2005. PNAS 102 (46): 16569–16572
More and more, these two relative indexes (and/or other similar) are used worldwide as the chief factors depicting the quality/excellence of a scientist (RG is not the exception). Probably, the main reasons why these indexes are used are that they are easy to get and they are well known. So, scientific agencies assume they can make comparisons among scientists worldwide (within and among countries as it appears once a year in Nature).
In spite of what Hirsch himself said: "Obviously, a single number can never give more than a rough approximation to an individual's multifaceted profile, and many other factors should be considered in combination in evaluating an individual,".
Scientists are currently aware of this inconsistency, but I’m afraid nobody came up come with better alternatives or solutions yet. …
Today, the H index of a biologist and the Impact Factor of the journals in which that biologist publishes and/or work (in editorial or reviewer boards), will seal his/her destiny in most universities and scientific institutions.
Indeed the current paradigm is not "publish or perish", but rather: “Tell me where you publish and I will tell you what the excellence of your work and yourself, as a scientist, is”.
AB
Philadelphia, PA
Dear Bortolus & readers,
It seems the obvious objection to the kinds of system you describe is that they are subject to abuse by means of what we might call "insider trading" --of favors.
"Insider trading" is used to refer to practices in the stock markets or financial markets, perhaps, in which people make use of information from inside a firm (not available to the general public) to trade on their own accounts. If you know, as an insiders, say, that your firm is about to announce a big sale or contract, then the idea would be to buy the stock of the company before the announcement, and then sell it afterward once the stock has gone up in price. This is a corrupt practice (in the U.S. in any case) punishable by law; and the regulators are always looking out for this kind abuse of the markets.
I borrow the term for use here. Favoring the citation of articles by well known people, perhaps in well known journals, though the same information might be found elsewhere, can be viewed as a kind of "insider trading." (Trading of favors among academic insiders.) It seems pretty clear that if prestigious authors all favor the citation of each other, then they will easily inflate their own scores--of the kinds you discuss. A parallel practice would be to ignore the contributions of those less advantaged in terms of the scores. A positive reputation has a kind of self-reinforcing character, of course--for better or worse; and there is little anyone can do about that. But one might certainly consider not systematizing this kind of effect. Systematizing it does not, of course eliminate the subjective elements arising from the pursuit of advantageous insider status.
The scoring systems would seem to feed into the cults of the academic "superstars" --which many a university--and some publishers--aim to produce--to feather their own nests. (Consider the phenomenon of extra help, behind the scenes.) But, since prominence within the institutions often comes to depend predominantly on a kind of internal power-politics, we are entitled to a take it all with a grain of salt.
At best higher scores create a presumption of quality, though, often enough, people begin to think differently once the "stars" are gone. On the other hand, to know what is currently going on, the scores can be helpful. Its just that one might do equally well by studying a couple of years of any good journal and seeing what gets published--what ideas are circulating prominently.
H.G. Callaway
Hello,
Charles Dickens's portrayal of the term excellence in the novel called David Copperfield is quite insightful . He says, “my meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.” This shows that reaching academic excellence is not something external, and that is the reason why universities have failed to train individuals with a remarkable academic excellence. Notably, as Aristotle once said, , academic excellence grows out of one's "training and habituation" . These processes both require internal forces such as intelligence and effort. In point of fact, academic excellence can blossom only through individual's persistent perseverance to improve his/her quality of work in order to reach the upper rungs of academic excellence.
Best regards,
R. Biria
Academic excellence is the complex ability to perform, achieve, and/or excel in scholastic activities. Detailed information on the topic:
Fostering Academic Excellence by J. McLeod and A. Cropley, available at https://www.elsevier.com/books/fostering-academic-excellence/mcleod/978-0-08-036459-9
Best regards,
Petar
The other day a student from my lab joked about how scientists pursue success. I asked her: "would you please define "success"?" The student smartly eluded the answer. I ask you now: would you define "success" in Science? ....or you rather elude the answer too?
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