Evaluating Scholarship and Research Impact

Jeffrey W. Alstete is Professor of Management and Business Administration at Iona College, USA. He teaches business policy and strategy, entrepreneurship, international management, managerial decision-making, and other topics. Professor Alstete is chair of the Intellectual Contributions Committee and is the author of five books including Benchmarking in Higher Education and Revenue Generation Strategies: Leveraging Higher Education Resources for Increase Income. Nicholas J. Beutell is Professor of Management and Business Administration at Iona College, USA. He was Dean of the School of Business for ten years, prior chair of the Institutional Review Board at Iona College, and has over 40 years of experience as scholar, professor, and administrator. Professor Beutell is a widely recognized and highly cited scholar on work-family and life satisfaction.John P. Meyer is Professor and Chair of Management and Business Administration at Iona College, USA. His research includes knowledge management, innovation and experiential learning. He has published research on intellectual capital and patent citations which, as representations of innovation quality and value, are analogous to the way scholarly citations are now being used to evaluate research quality and value.

• 1. A Primer on Policy and Research2. History and Evolution of Scholarly Metrics and Impact Factors3. Concerns and Problems4. Benefits and Possibilities for Research Policy Improvements 5. Impact is Perceived as an Indirect Measure of Quality6. ConclusionAppendix 1: San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

Business scholars Alstete, Beutell, and Meyer propose a conceptual framework for using research evaluation methods to develop policies for promoting and rewarding quality research that includes consideration of research purpose, outputs, forms, funding and institutional type. The underlying problem, they say, is the growing awareness that publication in a "quality" journal does not necessarily equate to the true value of the underlying research. They discuss a primer on policy and research, the history and evolution of scholarly metrics and impact factors, concerns and problems, and benefits and possibilities for research policy improvements.