Metrics or Peer Review? Evaluating the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise in Political Science

Author:

Butler Linda1,McAllister Ian1

Affiliation:

1. Australian National University

Abstract

Evaluations of research quality in universities are now widely used in the advanced economies. The UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is the most highly developed of these research evaluations. This article uses the results from the 2001 RAE in political science to assess the utility of citations as a measure of outcome, relative to other possible indicators. The data come from the 4,400 submissions to the RAE political science panel. The 28,128 citations analysed relate not only to journal articles, but to all submitted publications – including authored and edited books and book chapters. The results show that citations are the most important predictor of the RAE outcome, followed by whether or not a department had a representative on the RAE panel. The results highlight the need to develop robust quantitative indicators to evaluate research quality which would obviate the need for a peer evaluation based on a large committee. Bibliometrics should form the main component of such a portfolio of quantitative indicators.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Political Science and International Relations,Sociology and Political Science

Reference17 articles.

1. Assessing university research: a plea for a balanced approach

2. Extending citation analysis to non-source items

3. Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) (2005) Measures of Quality and Impact of Publicly-Funded Research in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Available from: http://www.chass.org.au/op2.pdf [Accessed 26 April 2007].

4. Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) (2006) CHASS Bibliometrics Project, Political Science and History Panels, Report on Recommendations and Major Issues. Available from: http://www.chass.org.au/papers/bibliometrics/CHASS_Report.pdf [Accessed 26 April 2007].

5. Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) (2006) Research Quality Framework. Assessing the Quality and Impact of Research in Australia. The Recommended RQF. Available from: http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/7E5FDEBD-3663-4144-8FBE-AE5E6EE47D29/14867/Recommended_RQF_Dec2006.pdf [Accessed 26 April 2007].

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