#2 is a little vague, without more specificity about just
how IRs
are to be used for this purpose. But #1 is what I am really
questioning, in practical terms. The "relevance"
to whom? The
"institution's visibility, status" in whose eyes?
Who is the
target audience for IRs? Presumably the most important
audience
would be the people who make decisions having a major
financial
impact on universities, like state legislators or members of
Congress.
But does anyone have any evidence that either of these
important
constituencies has ever actually viewed anything in an IR?
And
what would such a person make of very specialized research?
On
what grounds could such a person pass judgment as to the
quality
or "relevance" of such research, unless it were
research targeted
to very specific projects funded by the state or federal
government, which would normally be brought to the attention
of
the funding bodies through formal reports on the use of
funds
granted, not through materials found on IRs. So, exactly
whom are
universities trying to impress with their IRs?
A true evaluation of the value of a university's research
output
would be a mammoth undertaking, far beyond what any
individual
legislator could even begin to tackle. What determines the
university's "status," then, since no such formal
evaluation is
ever actually carried out (apart, I suppose, from
accrediting
bodies)?
Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press
>Sandy: A recent reading of Raym Crow's 2002 SPARC White
Paper
>on IRs reminded me that he gave two principal reason for
setting
>them up:
>
>1. Serve as tangible indicators of an institution's
quality and
>to demonstrate the relevance of its research activities,
thus
>increasing the institution's visibility, status, and
public
>value (what one could term administrative aggregation).
>
>2. Provide tools to assist universities in re-shaping
the
>scholarly communications process (what one could term a
repair
>function).
>
>Ann Okerson/Yale Library
|
