Research evaluation
Vol 34(2), May 2008
By
Jul 13, 2008 - 6:46 PM

Budden AE, Tregenza T, Aarssen LW, Koricheva J, Leimu R, Lortie CJ. Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 2008;23:4–6. (doi:10.1016/j.tree.2007.07.008)
Within two years of the introduction of the double-blind review process in Behavioral Ecology and Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, articles written by women researchers increased. Is there a “chauvinist” bias in the peer review procedure that the double-blind process exposes, or if there is a “feminist” bias in the valuation of casual data?

Leydesdorff L. Caveats for the use of citation indicators in research and journal evaluations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 2008;59(2):278–287. (doi: 10.1002/asi.20743)
Journals that are not included in the ISI dataset can be evaluated with an “externally cited impact factor” by using ISI databases anyway. To construct this indicator it is useful to follow a procedure that includes searching the Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports.

Shepherd PT. Final report on the investigation into the feasibility of developing and implementing journal usage factors. United Kingdom Serials Group, May 2007. (www.uksg.org/sites/uksg.org/files/FinalReportUsageFactorProject.pdf)
Shows the growing interest in developing usage-based alternatives to citation-based measures of journal performance (impact factor). The study aimed to determine whether the usage factor concept is meaningful, practical to implement, and provides insights into the value and quality of online journals. It consisted of in-depth interviews with 29 prominent opinion makers from the science, technical, and medical author/editor, librarian, and journal publisher communities, to explore their reaction to the Usage Factor and to discuss how it might be implemented and used. Phase 2 consisted of a web-based survey of a larger cross-section of the author and librarian communities.

Steckler A, McLeroy KR. The importance of external validity. American Journal of Public Health 2008;98(1):9–10 (doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.126847).
Enhancing the quality of reporting on external validity in journal articles warrants higher priority than it has received in public health research publications to date. Several characteristics of external validity should be reported; many articles will benefit by including information on external validity.


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