The Australian Research Council (ARC) is currently seeking public feedback on the Draft ERA 2015 submission documents.
One of several changes being suggested in the new guidelines is the addition of output volume information to the published ratings (Outcome Reporting - see section 4.2.3). This means that for evaluated fields of research the ARC will not only publicly report the ERA rating (5-1) but also the volume of outputs aligned to that rating. In the past rounds of ERA the evaluation has highlighted 'excellence wherever it occurs' meaning that a small university could score an ERA rating '5' in the same field of research as a larger university and these were seen as equivalent. This suggested change to the reporting of outcomes will mean that there will be a grading or stratification within ratings - for example an ERA rating of '5' with only 50 outputs will no longer be seen as equivalent to an ERA rating '5' in the same field with 500 outputs; or, in fact, may also be seen as inferior to an ERA rating '4' with 500 outputs.
Another change noted in the consultation documents (but not specifically highlighted so you have to dig to find it) is the slight change to the 'reassignment exception'. The new "warning" in the business rules document states that "The reassignment exception must not be used to more more than 40% of the apportioned journal articles into a single UoE". This may be an attempt to put a stop to the 'gaming' that some people think is occurring in the sector. This new rule will now mean that in a single field of research at least 60% of the journal articles must be assigned a field of research as stated on the ARC's journal list
The public consultation can be accessed by the following link:
No comments:
Post a Comment