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The competition in the academe has always been tough, but today, the academe seems to be more like an industry than an academic community as academics are evaluated through quantified and economic means.

This article leans on Heidegger’s thoughts on the essence of technology and his ontological view on being to show the dangers that lie in this quantification of researchers and research.

Despite the benefits that information systems (ISs) offer to people and research, it seems that technology has made it possible to objectify researchers and research. This has a negative impact on the academe and should thus be looked into especially by the IS field, which should note the problems that exist in its core. This phenomenon of quantified academics is clearly visible at academic quantification sites, where academics are evaluated using metrics that count their output. It seems that the essence of technology has disturbed the way research is valued by emphasising its quantifiable aspects. The study claims that it is important to look for other ways to evaluate researchers rather than trying to maximise research production, which has led to the flooding of articles that few have the time or interest to read.

This paper offers new insights into the current phenomenon of quantification of academics and underlines the need for critical changes if in order to achieve the academic culture that is desirable for future academics.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical discussion of the Leiden Manifesto for libraries already engaged in bibliometric practices. It offers practical recommendations based on the work of the European Association for Research Libraries (LIBER) Working Group on Metrics. This work is in the beginning phase and summarizes literature on the topic, as well as the experiences of the members of the Working Group. The discussion reflects today's growing popularity of (quantitative) research assessment which is seen in enthusiasts introducing new metrics (i.e. altmetrics) and by critics demanding responsible metrics that increase objectivity and equity in evaluations.

This paper is the result of the Working Group on Metrics of the European Association for Research Libraries (LIBER) that critically discussed the practicality of the Leiden Manifesto for libraries.

Full compliance with the Manifesto is time-consuming, expensive and requires a significant increase in bibliometric expertise with respect to both staffing and skill level. Despite these apparent disadvantages, it is recommended that all libraries embrace the Manifesto’s principles. To increase practicality, it is advised that libraries collaborate with researchers, management and other libraries at home and around the world to jointly design and provide services that can be reused within the library community.

Libraries have increasingly been confronted with questions about research assessment, responsible metrics and the role of digital products in evaluations and funding decisions. Although a wide range of recommendations and initiatives are available (e.g. DORA San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment), many recommendations are not straightforward enough to be implemented from a library perspective. This paper provides assistance for libraries to implement these principles by acknowledging the heterogeneous backgrounds the libraries may stem from.

Hicks et al. (2015) have formulated the so-called Leiden manifesto, in which they have assembled the ten principles for a meaningful evaluation of research on the basis of bibliometric data. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this work the attempt is made to indicate the relevance of the Leiden manifesto for altmetrics.

As shown by the discussion of the ten principles against the background of the knowledge about and the research into altmetrics, the principles also have a great importance for altmetrics and should be taken into account in their application.

Altmetrics is already frequently used in the area of research evaluation. Thus, it is important that the user of altmetrics data knows the relevance of the Leiden manifesto also in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize and provide context to the recently published Leiden Manifesto, a document written by leading bibliometric researchers, which proposes ten principles that should guide the use of bibliometric tools and indicators in research evaluation.

This paper is an opinion piece based on the Leiden Manifesto.

This paper addresses the phenomenon of increasing provision of bibliometric services by research university libraries and argues that their mission should be to advocate the responsible use of bibliometric methods for research evaluation in their institutions, in line with Leiden Manifesto principles.

This is an original piece.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage recognition of the potential impact of an increasingly complicated information ecosystem on scientometric indicators.

The paper considers how new web technologies have impacted the role of time in scientometric indicators.

The paper suggests that it is important to be aware of the limitations of scientometrics indicators in an increasingly complicated information environment, although without a more developed semantic web there is little that can be done.

Users of scientometric indicators should refrain from claiming too much confidence in them.

The paper considers scientometric indicators at a finer granularity that usual, and will be of interest to anyone concerned the application of bibliometric indicators and the changing nature of scientific discourse.

This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a data source for research and strategic decision-making.

A summative content analysis of the THE-IR methodology was conducted, paying special attention to the macro-structure (university score) and micro-structure (sustainable development goals [SDG] score) levels of the research-related metrics. Then, the data published by THE-IR in the 2019, 2020 and 2021 edition was collected via web scraping. After that, all the data was statistically analysed to find out performance rates, SDGs’ success rates and geographic distributions. Finally, a pairwise comparison of the THE-IR against the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR) was conducted to calculate overlap measures.

Severe inconsistencies in the THE-IR methodology have been found, offering a distorted view of sustainability in higher education institutions, allowing different strategic actions to participate in the ranking (interested, strategic, committed and outperformer universities). The observed growing number of universities from developing countries and the absence of world-class universities reflect an opportunity for less-esteemed institutions, which might have a chance to gain reputation based on their efforts towards sustainability, but from a flawed ranking which should be avoided for decision-making.

University managers can be aware of the THE-IR validity when demanding informed decisions. University ranking researchers and practitioners can access a detailed analysis of the THE-IR to determine its properties as a ranking and use raw data from THE-IR in other studies or reports. Policy makers can use the main findings of this work to avoid misinterpretations when developing public policies related to the evaluation of the contribution of universities to the SDGs. Otherwise, these results can help the ranking publisher to improve some of the inconsistencies found in this study.

Given the global audience of the THE-IR, this work contributes to minimising the distorted vision that the THE-IR projects about sustainability in higher education institutions, and alerts governments, higher education bodies and policy makers to take precautions when making decisions based on this ranking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this contribution is the first providing an analysis of the THE-IR’s methodology. The faults in the methodology, the coverage at the country-level and the overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR have unveiled the existence of specific strategies in the participation of universities, of interest both for experts in university rankings and SDGs.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the use of bibliometric indicators as a people analytics tool for examining research performance outcome differences in faculty mobility and turnover.

Employing bibliometric information from research databases, the publication, citations, h-index and newly developed individual annualized h-index (hIa-index) for a sample of university faculty is examined (N = 684). Information relating to turnover decisions from a human resource (HR) information system and bibliometric data from a research database are combined to explore research performance differences across cohorts of retained, resigned or terminated faculty over a five-year period in a single university.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicate traditional bibliometric indicators of h-index, publication count and citation count which are limited in their ability to identify performance differences between employment status cohorts. Results do show some promise for the newly developed hIa-index, as it is found to be significantly lower for terminated faculty (p < 0.001), as compared to both retained and resigned faculty. Multinomial logistic regression analysis also confirms the hIa metric as a predictor of terminated employment status.

First, the results imply that the hIa-index, which controls for career length and elements of coauthorship is a superior bibliometric indicator for comparison of research performance.

Results suggest that the hIa metric may serve as a useful tool for the examination of employment decisions for universities. It also highlights the potential usefulness of bibliometric indicators for people analytics and the examination of employment decisions, performance management and faculty turnover in research-intensive higher education contexts.

This empirical paper is entirely unique. No research has previously examined the issue of turnover in a university setting using the bibliometric measures employed here. This is a first example of the potential use of hIa bibliometric index as an HR analytics tool for the examination of HR decisions such as employee turnover in the university context.

The knowledge generated by academics in the field of management is often criticized because of its reduced relevance for professionals. In the review of the literature, the authors distinguish between three streams of thought. The review of the literature and the understanding of the research streams that have been addressed by the academic–practitioner gap in management has allowed to clarify that what truly underlies each of these approaches is a different assumption or paradigm from which the management science focusses.

This paper reviews the main approaches that have analysed this topic, drawing a number of conclusions.

The knowledge generated by academics in the field of management is often criticized because of its reduced relevance for professionals. In the review of the literature, the authors distinguish between three main perspectives. The review of the literature and the understanding of the research streams that have been addressed by the academic–practitioner gap in management has allowed us to clarify that what truly underlies each of these approaches is a different assumption or paradigm from which the management science focusses. To represent the findings of the literature review in this sense, the authors will present, first, a model that serves as a framework to interpret the different solutions proposed in the literature to close the gap from a positivist paradigm. Subsequently, they question this view through a reflection that brings us closer to a more pragmatic and interpretive paradigm of management science to bridge the research–practice gap.

In recent studies, researchers agree that there is an important gap between management research and practice, which may bear little resemblance to each other. However, the literature on this topic does not seem to be guided by a rigorously structured discourse and, for the most part, is not based on empirical studies. Moreover, a sizeable body of literature has been developed with the objective of analysing and contributing solutions that reconcile management researchers and professionals. To offer a more systematic view of the literature on this topic, the paper classifies previous approaches into three different perspectives based on the ideas on which they are supported. Finally, the paper concludes with some reflections that could help to reorient the paradigm from which the management research is carried out.

Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs), which apply a peer-review policy based solely on scientific soundness, elicit opposing views. Sceptical authors believe that OAMJs are simply an easy target to publish uninteresting papers that would not be accepted in more selective traditional journals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate any differences in scholars’ considerations of OAMJs by analysing the productivity and impact of Spanish authors in Biology and Medicine who publish in PLOS ONE.

Scopus was used to identify the most prolific Spanish authors in Biology and Medicine between 2013 and 2017 and to determine their publication patterns in PLOS ONE. Any differences in terms of citation impact between Spanish authors who publish frequently in PLOS ONE and the global Spanish output in Biology and Medicine were measured.

Results show a moderate correlation between the total number of articles published by prolific authors in Biology and Medicine and the number of articles they publish in PLOS ONE. Authors who publish frequently in PLOS ONE tend to publish more frequently than average in Quartile 1 and Top 10 per cent impact journals and their articles are more frequently cited than average too, suggesting that they do not submit to PLOS ONE for the purpose of gaining easier publication in a high-impact journal.

The study is limited to one country, one OAMJ and one discipline and does not investigate whether authors select PLOS ONE for what they might regard as their lower quality research.

Very few studies have empirically addressed the implications of the soundness-based peer-review policy applied by OAMJs.