Beyond the RAE – the afternoon sessions

Well, before lunch, my battery went, so I missed the final Q&A. However, over lunch I found a power socket, and got a bit more charge into the battery (although not fully charged, so won’t last the afternoon).

The afternoon of the session is mainly about case studies. However the first session is about a questionnaire all delegates filled out before the conference. The results are:

  • 75 Universities represented
  • About a third from library and information services
  • 41 have ‘Research’ in their job titles
  • Almost all delegates were involved in the collection of publications metadata for the RAE

Delegates identified the following challenges:

  • Verifying individual researchers publications lists (60%)
  • Collecting the source data (46%)
  • Engaging researchers support (36%)
  • Ensuring accuracy of data (6%)
  • DOIs (3%)
  • Meeting RAE requirements

More than half the delegates believed they would be involved in the REF. The main concerns were:

Getting accurate and verifiable data

  • Publications – knowing whether complete
  • Citation data
    • replicate citation counts
    • verfiy and challenge if necessary
  • Getting corrections in Web of Science

Institutional Infratstructure

  • Institutional repository or Publications database
  • Linking output to individuals
  • Difficulty of including citation information
  • Perhaps – National infrastructure
  • Perhaps – Centralised data collection
  • Systems Architecture – flexible
  • More sophisticated – inform research strategy

Knowing what is required

  • Hopefully today will help
  • What tools will be available to help?

Time and workflow

  • Too short timescale
  • Not just 4 publications per researcher
  • If citation window is 10 years (or more) – even more data to collect
  • Stability – perhaps become more integrated to institutional workflow, rather than special event every few years

Bibliometrics

Subject Coverage

  • Interdisciplinary areas – e.g. Nursing/Health

Selection of individuals

Gamesmanship

Using Web of Science

  • Comprehensiveness

Using other sources

  • Publications not in WoS

Scholarly Communications

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