Research colloquium: We don't know, but we can measure it. Rankings, impact factors and path dependency

Scientific careers are increasingly dependent on publications in so-called A-journals, i.e. journals that are classified as high-ranking according to their impact factor or similar constructs. Due to the skewed distribution of citations of articles in these journals, however, this is not a very useful criterion for the quality of individual articles. I ask why this criterion has nevertheless gained acceptance and show that the path dependency approach helps to explain it. I then discuss proposals on how the predominance of the impact factor as a quality criterion can be undermined.

Speaker: Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Margit Osterloh

More information:http://www.uni-kassel.de/einrichtungen/de/incher/veranstaltungen/kolloquien-im-sommersemester-2018.html