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Record W3176767185 · doi:10.1177/05390184211019161

Science needs more external evaluation, not less

2021· article· en· W3176767185 on OpenAlex
Loes Knaapen

Why this work is in the frame

A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.

affAt least one author lists a Canadian institution in the pinned OpenAlex snapshot.

Bibliographic record

VenueSocial Science Information · 2021
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldDecision Sciences
Topicscientometrics and bibliometrics research
Canadian institutionsUniversity of Ottawa
Fundersnot available
KeywordsProductivityAccountabilityReductionismDemocracyPolitical scienceDiversity (politics)PoliticsSociologyPublic relationsEpistemologyEconomicsLaw

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

When science is evaluated by bureaucrats and administrators, it is usually done by quantified performance metrics, for the purpose of economic productivity. Olof Hallonsten criticizes both the means (quantification) and purpose (economization) of such external evaluation. I share the concern that such neoliberal performance metrics are shallow, over-simplified and inaccurate, but differ in how best to oppose this reductionism. Hallonsten proposes to replace quantitative performance metrics with qualitative in-depth evaluation of science, which would keep evaluation internal to scientific communities. I argue that such qualitative internal evaluation will not be enough to challenge current external evaluation since it does little to counteract neoliberal politics, and fails to provide the accountability that science owes the public. To assure that the many worthy purposes of science (i.e. truth, democracy, well-being, justice) are valued and pursued, I argue science needs more and more diverse external evaluation. The diversification of science evaluation can go in many directions: towards both quantified performance metrics and qualitative internal assessments and beyond economic productivity to value science’s broader societal contributions. In addition to administrators and public servants, science evaluators must also include diverse counterpublics of scientists: civil society, journalists, interested lay public and scientists themselves. More diverse external evaluation is perhaps no more accurate than neoliberal quantified metrics, but by valuing the myriad contributions of science and the diversity of its producers and users, it is hopefully less partial and perhaps more just.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.069
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.063
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Bibliometrics, Science and technology studies, Scholarly communication
Consensus categoriesMetaresearch, Bibliometrics, Scholarly communication
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Other design · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.923
Threshold uncertainty score0.999

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0690.063
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0480.407
Science and technology studies0.0030.002
Scholarly communication0.0110.015
Open science0.0040.001
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.622
GPT teacher head0.620
Teacher spread0.002 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it