Title
Exploring alternative metrics of scholarly performance in the social sciences and humanities in Taiwan
Abstract
Research output and impact metrics derived from commercial citation databases such as Web of Science and Scopus have become the de facto indicators of scholarly performance across different disciplines and regions. However, it has been pointed out that the existing metrics are largely inadequate to reflect scholars' overall peer-mediated performance, especially in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) where publication channels are more diverse. In this paper alternative metrics exploring a variety of formal and informal communication channels were proposed, with the aim of better reflecting SSH scholarship. Data for a group of SSH scholars in Taiwan on these metrics were collected. Principal component analysis revealed four underlying dimensions represented by the 18 metrics. Multiple-regression analyses were then performed to examine how well each of these dimensions predicted the academic standing of the scholars, measured by the number of public grants awarded and prestigious research awards received. Differences in the significance of the predictors were found between the social sciences and humanities. The results suggest the need to consider disciplinary differences when evaluating scholarly performance.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1007/s11192-014-1420-6
Scientometrics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Research evaluation,Bibliometrics,Evaluation metrics,Altmetrics
Data science,Data mining,Scholarship,Altmetrics,Computer science,Citation,Discipline,Scopus,Social science,Public relations,Humanities,Bibliometrics,Informal communication
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
102
1
0138-9130
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.39
198
Authors
4
Search Limit
100198
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kuang-hua Chen117223.44
Muh-Chyun Tang2827.61
Chun-mei Wang340.39
Jieh Hsiang4959137.71