Research outputs in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) get a much smaller fraction of citations than other disciplines do. The same is true concerning coverage in multidisciplinary bibliographic databases, such as Web of Science and Scopus. Unfortunately, research assessment exercises and rankings still heavily rely on these databases as well as on citation-based indicators. This results in a non-satisfying representation of SSH outputs and an understandably hesitant attitude of SSH researchers towards any kind of quantitative evaluation. However, peer review has also reached its limit in all disciplines due to the exponential growth of research output, increased multidisciplinarity, and a comparatively reduced number of appropriate peers. Furthermore peer review in SSH is sometimes considered not as rigorous as in the hard sciences.
The Open Science movement and alternative metrics are currently gaining momentum and offer opportunities to think outside the box of the citation-centered 'publish or perish' system. Particularly the SSH disciplines should benefit from the new developments; nevertheless these are still in their infancy and generally embraced at a faster pace by researchers from the hard sciences than from SSH.
The aim of this Research Topic is to gather critical contributions from researchers who are able to share cutting-edge research findings, initiatives, projects, policies or other insights concerning the overarching topic of how to increase the visibility of research output in the SSH. Original research papers and review articles are the most preferable article types, but other types are also welcome if suitable (see https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-analytics#article-types).
Suggested Topics (all with particular regard to SSH):
• peer review
• coverage in traditional data sources
• alternative data sources
• consideration of other relevant document types than journal articles
• Open Science
• traditional metrics
• new metrics
• unwished effects of research assessment
• possible reward systems for becoming more visible and open
• characterization of publication patterns in SSH specialties.
Research outputs in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) get a much smaller fraction of citations than other disciplines do. The same is true concerning coverage in multidisciplinary bibliographic databases, such as Web of Science and Scopus. Unfortunately, research assessment exercises and rankings still heavily rely on these databases as well as on citation-based indicators. This results in a non-satisfying representation of SSH outputs and an understandably hesitant attitude of SSH researchers towards any kind of quantitative evaluation. However, peer review has also reached its limit in all disciplines due to the exponential growth of research output, increased multidisciplinarity, and a comparatively reduced number of appropriate peers. Furthermore peer review in SSH is sometimes considered not as rigorous as in the hard sciences.
The Open Science movement and alternative metrics are currently gaining momentum and offer opportunities to think outside the box of the citation-centered 'publish or perish' system. Particularly the SSH disciplines should benefit from the new developments; nevertheless these are still in their infancy and generally embraced at a faster pace by researchers from the hard sciences than from SSH.
The aim of this Research Topic is to gather critical contributions from researchers who are able to share cutting-edge research findings, initiatives, projects, policies or other insights concerning the overarching topic of how to increase the visibility of research output in the SSH. Original research papers and review articles are the most preferable article types, but other types are also welcome if suitable (see https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-analytics#article-types).
Suggested Topics (all with particular regard to SSH):
• peer review
• coverage in traditional data sources
• alternative data sources
• consideration of other relevant document types than journal articles
• Open Science
• traditional metrics
• new metrics
• unwished effects of research assessment
• possible reward systems for becoming more visible and open
• characterization of publication patterns in SSH specialties.
