The evaluation of scientific research on the basis of estimation parameters in economics

Abstract

Below are some considerations following on from a past Editorial entitled “The evaluation of scientific research: the result of merit-based or discretionary criteria?” published in issue No.11 (2011) of the historical-technical journal “Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage”. The Editorial looked at various tools for evaluating scientific research and expressed some reservations about the bibliometric criteria:
- Impact Factor (IF), the most well-known bibliometric tool, owned by Thomson Reuters – Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which collects data from over 14,000 journals in its web portal: an evaluation system that determines the frequency with which an article is cited in a given period;
- Peer Review, a quality indicator typically used in selecting articles for publication;
- Open Linking, a reference service offered by aggregators which transforms citations into hyperlinks and allows researchers to browse online from article to article regardless of the journal or publisher;
- H Factor or H Index, which aims to quantify the overall scientific contribution of a researcher.