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This paper seeks to analyse publications on Nigeria indexed in Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of Thomson Scientific databases respectively to understand the international perspective of aspects of research publication dynamics in both fields.

Data covering the period 2002‐2007 were collected from the SSCI and AHCI of the Web of Science, an online service of Thomson Scientific in June 2008.

SSCI and AHCI indexed a total of 716 publications on Nigeria, 634 and 82 respectively. Paper production in each of these fields rose during 2002 to 2004 and 2005 respectively, and then started dropping. The publications received a total of 1,371 citations; the 82 AHCI documents received only six citations, while the 634 SSCI publications received 1,366 citations, equivalent to means of 0.06 and 2.15 citations per AHCI and SSCI document respectively. Only 6.1 per cent of the AHCI documents were cited compared with 46.7 per cent of SSCI publications; but citation of social science papers was consistently on the increase, while citation of arts and humanities publications, flattened in 200 humanities, was consistently on the increase. In both fields, article type of papers written in English dominated.

This research covers only a period of six years; a fuller picture would be obtained with a longer period.

Publications in sources listed in international databases could illustrate the extent to which Nigerian scholars have addressed issues of global relevance.

The paper uncovers the international status and perspective of Nigerian publications in social science and arts and humanities disciplines.

This paper is written as an attempt to employ the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) in the evaluation of Chinese humanities and social science research.

This paper uses statistics in the CSSCI (2000‐2004) to analyze the academic impact of researchers, papers and works, institutions and regions on Chinese humanities and social science research.

The authors identify 100 highly cited people, 50 highly cited papers, 50 highly cited works, 20 highly productive institutions and 20 highly cited institutions. Also provided is some regional information about Chinese humanities and social science research.

It is hoped that the CSSCI, as well as the analysis and evaluation based on it, will give researchers a better understanding of Chinese humanities and social science research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate disciplinary differences in the use of networked information for research and scholarly communication at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman. The paper produced quantitative data on how and why academics within different disciplines utilise networked information either made available internally through the university library, or externally through services accessed by the internet.

A questionnaire survey was conducted with academic staff at SQU.

Statistical analysis found a number of significant differences between respondents in the science disciplines and those in the social sciences and humanities with regard to their use of, and attitudes towards, digital information services. While respondents from science disciplines show overall longer and more frequent use of networked information, respondents from humanities and social sciences indicated more positive attitudes towards library networked services.

The Arab country context presents a challenge in determining the degree to which results can be extrapolated to other environments, in that disciplines are also divided by language. Science disciplines teach in English, and the social science and humanities in Arabic.

While similar studies have been undertaken in developed countries, this study is an attempt to establish some data for a developing Arab country.

In recent years, concern has been expressed that emphasis upon scientific and technological progress may have resulted in the relative neglect of the humanities, both in societal culture generally and in preparation for positions of social leadership. At present, the role of the humanities in educational administration preparatory programs is, by and large, negligible. A review of the literature suggests that there are at least three rationales which would support the introduction of humanities content into such programs: (1) to generally “liberalize” the student through broad exposure to humanistic content; (2) to train the administrator in purpose definition and value sensitivity through focused reading of philosophy and literature; and (3) to develop creative capacities in the prospective leader through the study of literature and other arts. It is recommended that attempts should be made to incorporate humanities content into preparatory programs in educational administration, that initial efforts should stress the latter two of the three above rationales, and that the endeavor should be undertaken in a preparatory institution by a three‐man team consisting of a humanities scholar, a professor of educational administration, and a school administrator.

Previous work has conceptually explored the value of the humanities for tourism education and has considered the pressures that likely serve as barriers to its greater inclusion in curricula. This chapter moves the debate from the conceptual level to the ground, reporting the results of a survey of tourism educators with regard to the role of the humanities in the programs in which they teach. The study explores the prevalence of the humanities as primary and supporting course content at the undergraduate and graduate levels, sheds light on barriers faculty members identify for incorporating more humanities content into their curricula, and offers examples of creative ways some educators are currently engaging with such content.

Enrolling in an academic discipline or selecting the college major choice is a dynamic process. Very few studies examine this aspect in India. This paper makes a humble attempt to fill this gap using NSSO 71st round data on social consumption on education. The purpose of this paper is to use multinomial regression model to study the different factors that influence course choice in higher education. The different factors (given the availability of information) considered relate to ability, gender, cost of higher education, socio-economic and geographical location. The results indicate that gender polarization is apparent between humanities and engineering. The predicated probabilities bring out the dichotomy between the choice of courses and levels of living expressed through consumption expenditures in terms of professional and non-professional courses. Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities.

The present paper follows the same approach as that of Turner and Bowen (1999). The Multinomial regression is specified as P ( M i = j ) = ( exp ( β j × X i ) / ∑ j − 1 5 exp ( β j × X i ) ) , where P (M_i=j) denotes the probability of choosing outcome j, the particular course/major choice that categorizes different disciplines. This response variable is specified with five categories: such as medicine, engineering, other professional courses, science and humanities. The authors’ primary interest is to determine the factors governing an individual’s decision to choose a particular subject field as compared to humanities. In other words, to make the system identifiable in the MLR, humanities is treated as a reference category. The vector X_i includes the set of explanatory variables and β_j refers to the corresponding coefficients for each of the outcome j. From an aggregate perspective, the distribution of course choices is an important input to the skill (technical skills) composition of future workforce. In that sense, except humanities, the rest of the courses are technical-intensive courses; hence, humanities is treated as a reference category.

The results indicate that gender polarization is apparent between humanities and engineering. The predicated probabilities bring out the dichotomy between the choice of courses and levels of living expressed through consumption expenditures in terms of professional and non-professional courses. Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities.

Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities. This course and regional imbalance need to be worked with multi-pronged strategies of providing both access to education and employment opportunities in other states. But the predicted probabilities of medicine and science remain similar across the board. Very few research studies on the determinants of field choice in higher education prevail in India. Research studies on returns to education by field or course choices hardly exist in India. These evidences are particularly important to know which course choices can support student loans, which can be the future area of work.

The research evidence is particularly important to know which course choices can support student loans, which can be the future area of work, as well as how to address the gender bias in the course choices.

The paper has social implications in terms of giving insights into the course choices of students. These findings bring in implications for practice in their ability to predict the demand for course choices and their share of demand, not only in the labor market but also across regions. India has 36 states/UTs and each state/UT has a huge population size and large geographical areas. The choice of course has state-specific influence because of nature of state economy, society, culture and inherent education systems. Further, within the states, rural and urban variation has also a serious influence on the choice of courses.

The present study is a value addition on three counts. First, the choice of courses includes the recent trends in the preference over market-oriented/technical courses such as medicine, engineering and other professional courses (chartered accountancy and similar courses, courses from Industrial Training Institute, recognized vocational training institute, etc.). The choice of market-oriented courses has been examined in relation to the choice of conventional subjects. Second, the socio-economic background of students plays a significant role in the choice of courses. Third, the present paper uses the latest data on Social Consumption on Education.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history.

Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries.

As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.

The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.

The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an experiment in a non-credit bearing series of social philosophy workshops offered to social science and humanities disciplines in an Australian university.

The paper outlines the design rationale and learning objectives for the workshop series. The data set includes qualitative student responses to 501 post-workshop questionnaires and 14 in-depth qualitative responses to a follow-up online questionnaire.

The data suggest that social philosophy methodology curriculum offered within a multi-discipline peer context can facilitate an appreciation among students of the centrality of theory and the value of diverse discipline approaches in research. The last part of the paper explores what underpins this – a kind of un-learning or uncertainty regarding the veracity of different philosophical approaches to research, tied to a de-centring of research subjectivity that allows for the co-existence of multiple voices. Language learning, the inclusion of post-modern perspectives and an unbiased presentation of a wide range of thinkers within a challenging intellectual context are central to this.

The emerging trend towards university-wide doctoral training offers opportunities for useful innovations in research education. University-wide social philosophy curriculum can play a role in facilitating constructive negotiation of theoretical complexity both within and across social science and humanities disciplines.

The contemporary social science and humanities research context is a challenging space, characterised by intra-discipline methodological plurality, and the risk of marginalisation by more dominant instrumentalist, end-user and science-driven perspectives. The trend towards bringing different methodological perspectives together within inter-disciplinary research and team supervision of doctoral students can lead to conceptual misunderstanding and research delays. The capacity to negotiate and translate conceptual perspectives, often within complex research relationships, has then become an increasingly important academic skill. Within this context, university-wide doctoral training has emerged, but there has been little discussion of doctoral curricula beyond that devised for professional doctorates within the discipline in the non-US higher education literature. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship on research education by describing the sorts of relational, textual and conceptual processes that might be created in the multi-discipline social science and humanities context to produce an appreciation for the different philosophical foundations of research knowledge.

What do we mean by “the social” exactly, and above all, are we attempting to define it as a static issue or a dynamic one? Consequently, as a theoretical concept or as a grounded empirical concept? Furthermore, should this concept be uniting two orders of knowledge such as the social sciences and the humanities in a broad sense? Or should this knowledge be considered within a reciprocal relationship, creating a tension that can have some kind of consequence uniting in some cases, but also differentiating and conflicting in others? The book of Brown is extraordinarily detailed and consequent in this sense. There is a continuous attempt to develop a terminology which can move from static concepts of the social in favor of dynamic ones.