The SSCI Syndrome in Taiwan’s Academia

Abstract

With the global expansion of higher education in the last two decades, the maintenance of academic quality to meet requirements for international competitiveness has become a critical issue for policymakers and universities. In addition, the neoliberal emphasis on the market has increased the competition for global university rankings, and this emphasis continues to have consequences for university autonomy and academic governance. To cope with these challenges, Taiwan has introduced strategies for benchmarking its leading universities. Under the new evaluation system, universities are evaluated by external standards instead of those ensuring academic autonomy or contributions to society. This article details how these recent policy reforms have given rise to a new 'SSCI syndrome', which risks turning faculty members into paper producers rather than public intellectuals. These changes have also impacted students' rights as well as the greater goals of academic development. The article then argues that, as voices from both within and outside of Taiwan's academia have begun to respond to the issue, it begs the question as to whether or not Taiwan can serve as a model for the many other non-English-speaking countries of the academic 'periphery' who are currently confronting similar issues. Given the increasing global pervasiveness of this SSCI syndrome, understanding the effects of policies recently implemented in Taiwan has important epaa aape

US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens

“…For example, faculty in Taiwan must establish their research performance through citations and publishing manuscripts indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), often considered the top-tier indexing sites (Chou et al 2013 ). Several other Asian countries are also complicit in using indexing sites to demonstrate their high-quality research, with the assumption that indexing sites contribute to higher status and rankings in an academic global game coined the “SSCI Syndrome” (Chou 2014 ). The SSCI Syndrome indicates a very narrow focus on perceived quality and productivity that has been imposed by national and institutional policies in the quest for higher rankings in the global HE market.…”

Las revistas de investigación en educación: Análisis DAFO

“…También afecta a si se van a considerar relevantes las revistas de enfoque más local o sólo aquellas que pretendan orientarse a un público internacional. Como vemos, se trata de temas complejos y no resueltos, excepto, quizás, como hechos consumados de los gestores de las evaluaciones y las políticas científicas, recibida con incomodidad por buena parte de la comunidad académica, lo que en ocasiones ha acabado en algo parecido a un plante, como el de Taiwan (Chou, 2014), en el que más de 3.000 investigadores de Ciencias Sociales se rebelaron contra la aplicación exclusiva del SSCI para evaluar su producción científica, consiguiendo cambios relevantes (aceptación de revistas locales de calidad reconocida y en idioma vernáculo). Críticas aún más antiguas a la aceptación unívoca de indicadores emitidos por las diversas bases del entonces Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) para evaluar la investigación educativa, sus revistas, agentes e instituciones, son localizables en Fernández-Cano (1995a, 1995b.…”

“…Hay fuertes presiones (algunas razonables) para que también lo sea en el ámbito de las Ciencias Sociales. Sabemos que buena parte de la comunicación en las disciplinas más sociales, más culturales, se desarrolla en el idioma vernáculo (Chou, 2014;Ishikawa, 2014). Ello tiene sentido porque ese tipo de conocimiento está enraizado en la cultura de origen y, con frecuencia, va dirigido a esa misma sociedad.…”

“…Expresarlo en un idioma diferente podría facilitar un mayor impacto académico, pero dificultaría su impacto social, al quedar fuera del alcance de la mayoría de los integrantes de esa sociedad. Países tecnológicamente tan avanzados como Japón o Taiwan no tienen reparos en defender que la expresión de buena parte de su investigación social se haga en su idioma vernáculo (Chou, 2014;Ishikawa, 2014).…”

Reflections on the Use of SSCI Papers in Evaluating Social Sciences Research in Chinese Universities

“…In this respect, emphasis on publishing SSCI papers has made “scholars mistakenly equate internationalization with a high quality level, thus weakening the role of scientific research at serving the country’s development” (Liu & Ding, 2014, p. 91). Exaggerating the evaluative function of SSCI papers and placing this indicator at such a “supreme” position in the evaluation system have also led to a discrimination against the publication of papers in Chinese (Chou, 2014, p. 12).…”