Quality Of Research Performance Research Articles

Reconciliation Between Monetary Incentives and Motivation Crowding-Out: The Influence of Perceptions of Incentives on Research Performance

Motivation crowding theories suggest that the influence of performance-based monetary incentives on performance may depend on how employees perceive the incentives. To examine the crowding-out effect, this article analyzed a panel dataset of faculty’s research published over 9 years in a Korean university, focusing on the moderating role of perceptions of incentives. We found that, as the university increased financial incentives for research performance, academic researchers who perceived the incentives as supportive published more papers in higher impact factor journals. In contrast, the quantity and quality of research performance of those who perceived such incentives as controlling were not significantly associated with the increase in the incentives. To improve the performance of the performance-incentive system with potential crowding-out effects, administrators should communicate with employees to help them perceive incentives as supportive and positive.

Scientific publications from Arab world in leading journals of Integrative and Complementary Medicine: a bibliometric analysis.

BackgroundBibliometric analysis is increasingly employed as a useful tool to assess the quantity and quality of research performance. The specific goal of the current study was to evaluate the performance of research output originating from Arab world and published in international Integrative and Complementary Medicine (ICM) journals.MethodsOriginal scientific publications and reviews from the 22 Arab countries that were published in 22 international peer-reviewed ICM journals during all previous years up to December 31st 2013, were screened using the Web of Science databases.ResultsFive hundred and ninety-one documents were retrieved from 19 ICM journals. The h-index of the set of papers under study was 47. The highest h-index was 27 for Morocco, 21 for Jordan, followed by 19 for each Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Egypt, and the lowest h-index was 1 for each of Comoros, Qatar, and Syrian Arab Republic. No data related to ICM were published from Djibouti, and Mauritania. After adjusting for economy and population power, Somalia (89), Morocco (32.5), Egypt (31.1), Yemen (21.4), and Palestine (21.2) had the highest research productivity. The total number of citations was 9,466, with an average citation of 16 per document. The study identified 262 (44.3 %) documents with 39 countries in Arab-foreign country collaborations. Arab authors collaborated most with countries in Europe (24.2 %), followed by countries in the Asia-Pacific region (9.8 %).ConclusionScientific research output in the ICM field in the Arab world region is increasing. Most of publications from Arab world in ICM filed were driven by societal use of medicinal plants and herbs. Search for new therapies from available low cost medicinal plants in Arab world has motivated many researchers in academia and pharmaceutical industry. Further investigation is required to support these findings in a wider journal as well as to improve research output in the field of ICM from Arab world region by investing in more national and international collaborative research project.

A network analysis of interdisciplinary research relationships: the Korean government’s R&D grant program

This study examines network topologies of interdisciplinary research relationships in science and technology (ST the dataset covered the 2002–2004 period. The analytical results reveal the hidden network structure of interdisciplinary research relationships and demonstrate that the quality of research performance might be enhanced not only by interdependent pressures placed on various research fields but also by accumulated research capabilities that are relatively difficult to access and reproduce by other research fields.

Identifying the Resource and Service Needs of Graduate and Professional Students

The library profession has a vested interest in the retention and information literacy of graduate and professional students. Recent research highlights the need for the overall study of graduate student use of the library and of those services and resources geared toward that population. A University of Iowa Libraries' user needs assessment survey of a random sample of graduate and professional students revealed that although graduate and professional students come to the library to do research or to use other library resources, fewer come to study or borrow books. Graduate and professional students recognize the need for more assistance in using the library and would like more opportunities for library instruction. They prefer human contact. Even though they are satisfied with the resources and quality of staff assistance, they would like to find more material on the shelves when they need them. In addition, many of them are unaware of the range of library services available to them. One of the key strategic goals of the University of Iowa is the maintenance and support of premier graduate and professional programs. Among 131 public research universities recently ranked in Hugh Davis Graham's and Nancy Diamond's 1997 book The Rise of the American Research Universities, the University of Iowa ranked among the top 20 based on the quantity and quality of research performance (1997). As one of only two public research universities in the state of Iowa, the University of Iowa has a special role in graduate and professional education. In the knowledge-intensive world of the future, graduate and professional education play a central role, and given the limited opportunities for such education within the state of Iowa, this part of the University of Iowa's mission will increase in importance over time.

Validation of bibliometric indicators in the field of mathematics

Bibliometric analyses of scientific publications provide quantitative information that enables evaluators to obtain a useful picture of a team's research visibility. In combination with peer judgements and other qualitative background knowledge, these analyses can serve as a basis for discussions about research performance quality. However, many mathematicians are not convinced that citation counts do in fact provide useful information in the field of mathematics. According to these mathematicians, citation and publication habits differ completely from scholarly fields such as chemistry or physics. Therefore, it is impossible to derive valid information regarding research performance from citation counts. The aim of this study is to obtain more insight into the significance of citation-based indicators in the field of mathematics. To which extent do citation-scores mirror to the opinions of experts concerning the quality of a paper or a journal? A survey was conducted to answer this question.Top journals, as qualified by experts, receive significantly higher citation rates thangood journals. Thesegood journals, in turn, have significantly higher scores than journals with the qualificationless good. Top publications, recorded in the ISI database, receive on the average 15 times more citations than the mean score within the field of mathematics as a whole. In conclusion, the experts' views on top publications or top journals correspond very well to bibliometric indicators based on citation counts.