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The Excellence in Research for Australia Scheme: An Evaluation of the Draft Journal Weights for Economics

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Abstract

In February 2008, the Australian Government announced its intention to develop a new quality and evaluation system for research conducted at the nation’s universities. Although the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) scheme will utilize several measures to evaluate institutional performance, we have chosen to focus on one element only: the assessment of refereed journal article output based on ERA’s own journal weighting scheme. The ERA weighting scheme will undoubtedly shape the reward structure facing university administrators and individual academics. Our objective is to explore the nature of the ERA weighting scheme for economics, and to demonstrate how it impacts on departmental and individual researcher rankings relative to rankings generated by alternative schemes employed in the economics literature. In order to do so, we utilise data from New Zealand’s economics departments and the draft set of journal weights (DERA) released in August 2008 by ERA officials. Given the similarities between Australia and New Zealand, our findings should have relevance to the Australian scene. As a result, we hope to provide the reader with a better understanding of the type of research activity that influences DERA rankings at both the departmental and individual level.

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  • David L. Anderson & John Tressler, 2009. "The Excellence in Research for Australia Scheme: An Evaluation of the Draft Journal Weights for Economics," Working Papers in Economics 09/07, University of Waikato.
    • Handle: RePEc:wai:econwp:09/07
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    File URL: https://repec.its.waikato.ac.nz/wai/econwp/0907.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. David L. Anderson & John Tressler, 2010. "The Merits of Using Citation-Based Journal Weighting Schemes to Measure Research Performance in Economics: The Case of New Zealand," Working Papers in Economics 10/03, University of Waikato.
    2. Vanclay, Jerome K., 2011. "An evaluation of the Australian Research Council's journal ranking," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 265-274.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics departments; university rankings; research output; ERA;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A19 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Other
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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