Scholarly books and their evaluation context in the social sciences and humanities

Zuccala, Alesia A.; Giménez-Toledo, Elea; Peruginelli, Ginevra

doi:10.1108/ajim-11-2018-271

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…The evaluation of scholarly books is a growing theme across Europe, mainly because of their significance to SSH scholarly communities (Zuccala & Robinson-Garcia, 2019) but also due to their registration in national databases (Giménez-Toledo, Mañana-Rodríguez et al, 2016). This has inspired a number of scholars to investigate book publishing more intensively, often in relation to national performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) (Zuccala, Giménez-Toledo, & Peruginelli, 2018). Some have investigated the prestige of publishers (Giménez-Toledo Q1 & Román-Román, 2009) as well as their specialization (Mannana-Rodriguez & Giménez-Toledo, 2018), and others have explained how peer-review labels in books can be used as an aid to evaluation procedures (Kulczycki, Rozkosz et al, 2019;Verleysen & Engels, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?

Zuccala

Pölönen

Guns

et al. 2021

Quantitative Science Studies

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This study compares publisher ratings to the visibility and impact of individual books, based on a 2017 dataset from three Nordic PRFS systems (Denmark, Norway, and Finland). Although there are Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) for journals, there is no similar indicator for book publishers. National publisher lists are used instead to account for the general 'quality' of books, leading to institutional rewards. But, just as the JIF is not recommended as proxy for the ‘citedness’ of a paper, a publisher rating is also not recommended as proxy for the impact of an individual book. We introduce a small fish in a big pond versus big fish in a small pond metaphor, where a ‘fish’ is a book and ‘the pond’ represents its publishing house. We investigate how books fit on this metaphorical fish and pond continuum, using WorldCat holdings (visibility) and Google scholar citations (impact), and test other variables to determine their predictive value with respect to these two indicators. Our statistics show that publisher levels do not have predictive value, when other variables are held constant. This has implications for PRFSs and book evaluations in general, as well as ongoing developments related to a newly proposed international publisher registry.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?

Zuccala

Pölönen

Guns

et al. 2021

Quantitative Science Studies

Self Cite

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Portuguese Economic Journal, past and future

Cardoso

2022

Port Econ J

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Why Books are Important in the Scholarly Communication System in Social Sciences and Humanities

Toledo¹

2020

SAR

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Books are relevant outputs in research in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and need to be considered properly in research evaluation. Books are different from journals and the scholarly book publishing sector remains quite unknown within evaluation agencies. This paper describes the state of the scholarly publishing sector, beyond the large publishing groups and imprints, focusing the attention to the role of small- and medium-sized scholarly publishers at the national level. Bibliodiversity and multilingualism are essential values for representing plural and diverse SSH research. They are also linked to societal impact. Academic Book Publishers project and Helsinki Initiative are described to this regard. Finally, some remarks and recommendations for addressing the assessment of books are provided.Policy HighlightsSince monographs and edited books are essential communication media in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), they should be considered properly in research evaluation processes. Books are not outputs of second level in SSH research.Books are different from journals, which means that specific knowledge on the book publishing ecosystem and editorial practices is needed for addressing their evaluation. In this sense, it is important:Establishing stronger connections between the associations of scholarly publishers and research evaluation agencies.Boosting research on national academic book publishing landscapes.SSH research may be locally oriented and therefore published in national languages through national journals and publishers. Academic books should be evaluated considering this relevant feature of SSH research. It entails:Using complete publication data sources that reflect the diversity of scholarly publishers contributing to the dissemination of high quality research in SSH.Acknowledging the role of the small- and medium-sized, professional scholarly publishers which in each country take care of the publication of rigorous scholarly contents, closer related to local topics and written in national languages. Their role is complementary to that of the large imprints and publishing groups.Giving an adequate value to channels that allow for generating societal impact, especially to scholarly books (by local, regional and national publishers).Indicators can be used properly only if they take into account the diversity of scholarly publishers and the characteristics of the publishing landscape.

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Scholarly books and their evaluation context in the social sciences and humanities

Cited by 3 publications

References 14 publications

Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?

Performance-based publisher ratings and the visibility/impact of books: Small fish in a big pond, or big fish in a small pond?

Portuguese Economic Journal, past and future

Why Books are Important in the Scholarly Communication System in Social Sciences and Humanities

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