English

Evaluating research: from informed peer review to bibliometrics

Digital Libraries 2018-11-06 v1

Abstract

National research assessment exercises are becoming regular events in ever more countries. The present work contrasts the peer-review and bibliometrics approaches in the conduct of these exercises. The comparison is conducted in terms of the essential parameters of any measurement system: accuracy, robustness, validity, functionality, time and costs. Empirical evidence shows that for the natural and formal sciences, the bibliometric methodology is by far preferable to peer-review. Setting up national databases of publications by individual authors, derived from Web of Science or Scopus databases, would allow much better, cheaper and more frequent national research assessments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1811.01765,
  title  = {Evaluating research: from informed peer review to bibliometrics},
  author = {Giovanni Abramo and Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.01765},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T05:04:30.482Z