Exploring a prototype framework of web-based and peer-reviewed “European Educational Research Quality Indicators” (EERQI)

Abstract

Digitization, the Internet, and information or webometric interdisciplinary approaches are affecting the fields of Scientometrics and Library and Information Science (LIS). These new approaches can be used to improve citation-only procedures to estimate the quality and impact of research. A European pilot to explore this potential was called Three intrinsic and two extrinsic latent factors were found to be relevant. Moreover, the more a document was related to a reviewer's own area of research, the higher the score the reviewer gave concerning 1) significance, originality, and consistency, and 2) methodological adequacy. The conclusions are that a prototype EERQI framework has been constructed: intrinsic quality indicators add specific information to extrinsic quality or impact indicators, and vice versa. Also, a problem of "objective" impact scores is that they are based on "subjective" or biased peer-review scores. Peer-review, which is foundational to having a work cited, seems biased and this bias should be controlled or improved by more refined estimates of quality and impact of research. Some suggestions are given and limitations of the pilot are discussed. As the EERQI development approach, instruments, and tools are new, they should be developed further.