Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Qualifying the performance evaluation of Big Science beyond productivity, impact and costs

Heidler, Richard and Hallonsten, Olof LU (2015) In Scientometrics 104(1). p.295-312
Abstract
The use of quantitative performance measures to evaluate the productivity, impact and quality of research has spread to almost all parts of public R&D systems, including Big Science where traditional measures of technical reliability of instruments and user oversub- scription have been joined by publication counts to assess scientific productivity. But such performance assessment has been shown to lead to absurdities, as the calculated average cost of single journal publications easily may reach hundreds of millions of dollars. In this article, the issue of productivity and impact is therefore further qualified by the use of additional measures such as the immediacy index as well as network analysis to evaluate qualitative aspects of... (More)
The use of quantitative performance measures to evaluate the productivity, impact and quality of research has spread to almost all parts of public R&D systems, including Big Science where traditional measures of technical reliability of instruments and user oversub- scription have been joined by publication counts to assess scientific productivity. But such performance assessment has been shown to lead to absurdities, as the calculated average cost of single journal publications easily may reach hundreds of millions of dollars. In this article, the issue of productivity and impact is therefore further qualified by the use of additional measures such as the immediacy index as well as network analysis to evaluate qualitative aspects of the impact of contemporary Big Science labs. Connecting to previous work within what has been called ‘‘facilitymetrics’’, the article continues the search for relevant biblio- metric measures of the performance of Big Science labs with the use of a case study of a recently opened facility that is advertised as contributing to ‘‘breakthrough’’ research, by using several more measures and thus qualifying the topic of performance evaluation in contem- porary Big Science beyond simple counts of publications, citations, and costs. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Big Science, Quality assessment, Performance assessment, Productivity, Network analysis
in
Scientometrics
volume
104
issue
1
pages
295 - 312
publisher
Akademiai Kiado
external identifiers
  • wos:000355948600013
  • scopus:84930824264
ISSN
1588-2861
DOI
10.1007/s11192-015-1577-7
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
13131ccb-dc4d-4a55-b5b4-662f9b127822 (old id 5469945)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:28:59
date last changed
2022-04-27 22:36:14
@article{13131ccb-dc4d-4a55-b5b4-662f9b127822,
  abstract     = {{The use of quantitative performance measures to evaluate the productivity, impact and quality of research has spread to almost all parts of public R&D systems, including Big Science where traditional measures of technical reliability of instruments and user oversub- scription have been joined by publication counts to assess scientific productivity. But such performance assessment has been shown to lead to absurdities, as the calculated average cost of single journal publications easily may reach hundreds of millions of dollars. In this article, the issue of productivity and impact is therefore further qualified by the use of additional measures such as the immediacy index as well as network analysis to evaluate qualitative aspects of the impact of contemporary Big Science labs. Connecting to previous work within what has been called ‘‘facilitymetrics’’, the article continues the search for relevant biblio- metric measures of the performance of Big Science labs with the use of a case study of a recently opened facility that is advertised as contributing to ‘‘breakthrough’’ research, by using several more measures and thus qualifying the topic of performance evaluation in contem- porary Big Science beyond simple counts of publications, citations, and costs.}},
  author       = {{Heidler, Richard and Hallonsten, Olof}},
  issn         = {{1588-2861}},
  keywords     = {{Big Science; Quality assessment; Performance assessment; Productivity; Network analysis}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{295--312}},
  publisher    = {{Akademiai Kiado}},
  series       = {{Scientometrics}},
  title        = {{Qualifying the performance evaluation of Big Science beyond productivity, impact and costs}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/1878755/5472929.pdf}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s11192-015-1577-7}},
  volume       = {{104}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}