Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?
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Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond? / Zuccala, Alesia Ann; Polonen, Janne; Guns, Raf; Roeggen, Vidar ; Kulczycki, Emanuel; Bruun, Kasper; Savolainen, Eeva.
I: Quantitative Science Studies, Bind 2, Nr. 2, 2021, s. 588–615.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?
AU - Zuccala, Alesia Ann
AU - Polonen, Janne
AU - Guns, Raf
AU - Roeggen, Vidar
AU - Kulczycki, Emanuel
AU - Bruun, Kasper
AU - Savolainen, Eeva
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This study compares publisher ratings to the visibility and impact of individual books, based on a 2017 dataset from three Nordic PRFS systems (Denmark, Norway, and Finland). Although there are Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) for journals, there is no similar indicator for book publishers. National publisher lists are used instead to account for the general 'quality' of books, leading to institutional rewards. But, just as the JIF is not recommended as proxy for the ‘citedness’ of a paper, a publisher rating is also not recommended as proxy for the impact of an individual book. We introduce a small fish in a big pond versus big fish in a small pond metaphor, where a ‘fish’ is a book and ‘the pond’ represents its publishing house. We investigate how books fit on this metaphorical fish and pond continuum, using WorldCat holdings (visibility) and Google scholar citations (impact), and test other variables to determine their predictive value with respect to these two indicators. Our statistics show that publisher levels do not have predictive value, when other variables are held constant. This has implications for PRFSs and book evaluations in general, as well as ongoing developments related to a newly proposed international publisher registry.
AB - This study compares publisher ratings to the visibility and impact of individual books, based on a 2017 dataset from three Nordic PRFS systems (Denmark, Norway, and Finland). Although there are Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) for journals, there is no similar indicator for book publishers. National publisher lists are used instead to account for the general 'quality' of books, leading to institutional rewards. But, just as the JIF is not recommended as proxy for the ‘citedness’ of a paper, a publisher rating is also not recommended as proxy for the impact of an individual book. We introduce a small fish in a big pond versus big fish in a small pond metaphor, where a ‘fish’ is a book and ‘the pond’ represents its publishing house. We investigate how books fit on this metaphorical fish and pond continuum, using WorldCat holdings (visibility) and Google scholar citations (impact), and test other variables to determine their predictive value with respect to these two indicators. Our statistics show that publisher levels do not have predictive value, when other variables are held constant. This has implications for PRFSs and book evaluations in general, as well as ongoing developments related to a newly proposed international publisher registry.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Book Evaluations; Book Publishing; Performance-Based Research Evaluation Systems (PRFS); Performance-based funding
U2 - 10.1162/qss_a_00134
DO - 10.1162/qss_a_00134
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2
SP - 588
EP - 615
JO - Quantitative Science Studies
JF - Quantitative Science Studies
SN - 2641-3337
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 260590624