THE IMPACT OF RAE ON SERIAL PUBLICATION Professor Judith Elkin UK Serials Group March 2004

Health warning: personal view My reactions as Chair of UOA61, 2001 Reflections on outcomes Looking to the future RAE 2008 RAE is a game to be played Pressure on academics to publish

Reminder of RAE 2001: Evidence – based exercise I.e. “snapshot”. ** Published criteria and working methods were binding on panels. ** Holistic approach taken by panels to submissions. ** Ratings relied on “expert judgement of panel and chair”. ** ** Likely to be the same for RAE 2008

RAE Research definition: Original investigation undertaken in order to gain knowledge and understanding. It includes work of direct relevance to the needs to commerce and industry, as well as to the public and voluntary sectors; scholarship; the invention and generation of ideas, images, performances and artefacts, including design, where these lead to new or substantially improved insights; and the use of existing knowledge in experimental developments to produce new or substantially improved materials, devices, products and processes, including design and construction. It excludes routine testing and analysis of materials.”

Narrative Clearly articulated research strategy. Clearly articulated research culture. Supported by the rest of the submission e.g. RA2 – quality of research outputs, including coherent work groups, where appropriate. RA3 – research students and completions. RA4 – research income.

Esteem indicators Evidence of good spread amongst research active staff. Evidence of national/international esteem as indicators e.g. keynote papers, Chair, member, prestigious research, government committees, journal editorship, advisory positions, awards.

Serial Output Serials are not the only published output: Monographs more significant in some UOAs Performance more significant on others Pressure was on 4 publications in highly rated refereed journals in many UOAs.

Research outputs Quality of research not dependant on source publications I.e. electronic journals counted equally with refereed print journals. High quality work was found in different formats. Definition of research regularly referred to by panels I.e. new knowledge/originality not descriptive. Danger of submitting re-write of the same research 4 times. Many overly descriptive outputs and outputs with little or no research content.

Too many regurgitated, descriptive papers lacking any research content. Poor overall quality of conference proceedings – brief, lightweight, no references. Some highly rated refereed journals contained poor quality papers. On the whole reviews/brief interim research reports/shallow overviews etc. were low rated. Research outputs

Think pieces with original thought/analysis/new methodologies were OK. Monographs rated well if research based – not text books. Too many joint authors. Many skimpy/poorly edited web/electronic journals. Many outputs returned demonstrated lack of research management in HEIs. Concern about editorial control. Research outputs

National/International “International excellence” as gold rating standard, with regard to best being carried out anywhere in world. Panels asked to spell out, in criteria, the types of quality and activity they would expect to find.

National/International “Achievable” - dependant on UoA. National/international boundary refers to standards not nature or scope of particular disciplines. No shortage of international conferences and conference proceedings but very few of international quality. International impact not location.

RAE Pressure on Publication Pressure on academics to be “research active”: academics lose freedom over split between research, scholarly activity and teaching roles. Shifts balance away from communication of research findings to peer community to publication for reputation enhancement. Emphasis on submission to journals covered by citation indices.

Drive to: o Premature publication “unpolished” o Publishing for wrong reasons o Publish work not yet finished o Speculative research in guise of completed research Focus on RAE “friendly” activities may lead to reluctance to undertake editorial work. Temptation to: o Recycle previous work o Divide single piece of research into several articles o Joint names, irrespective of contribution RAE Pressure on Publication

RAE 2008 Broadly same as RAE 2001 Census date 31 October 2007 Submission 30 November 2007 Research outputs published between 1 January 2001 and 31 July 2007 (all disciplines) Maximum 4 publications: individual panel may set lower maximum Applied and practice-based research* will not be disadvantaged.

15 – 20 main panels* with 70 sub-panels* Results will be published on a continuously graded quality profile for each submission (replace 7 point rating) Quality profiles will be criterion-referenced Quality profiles will identify the proportions of work in each submission reaching each of 4 defined* ‘starred’ quality levels [equivalent to international and national excellence in RAE 2001] * still to be determined RAE 2008