Future UK RAEs to be Metrics-Based

[Peter Ingwersen]

Dear Loet and Stevan et al. - I think we should stop this discussion now,
prior to too many mails arriving into our boxes for no use. Please convey
your discussion between you two. Loet is right in that the entire issue is
political AND that the metrics we possess are not strong enough to
substitute human assessemnts, e.g., of how the research is actually
performed in the labs (good Lab. practice, etc.). Stevan might like the
metrics, including fancy inlink analyses, not mentioned thus far, but:
actually, the correlations referred to (published) cover only the top-ranked
(and low-ranked) institutions in the RAE rankings - not really
distinguishing between the large portion of mid-positioned research
institutions in the UK. Hence, all this talk of substitution by metrics is
beneficial/fair to some - not to the entire body of research. My best
regards - Peter Ingwersen

-----Original Message-----
From: Loet Leydesdorff
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Sent: 28-03-06 20:56
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Future UK RAEs to be Metrics-Based


> Bref: Scrapping the non-metric white-elephant in favour of
> existing metrics is the policy part; improving on existing
> metrics is the research part.

Thus, you wish to make the RAE completely technocratic, while we know
that
we don't have reliable models for giving this strong type of policy
advice.
If I translate this for the Netherlands--having a dual system relying
more
on peer review than the UK--I can see the advantages, but also the
disadvantages. For one, it might give my unit more money!

With best wishes,


Loet
________________________________
Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR),
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam.
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681;
loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/