Dear All,
Some good points. But are we being a bit naïve - including myself?
Just a note to say the UK is now measuring (and so 'quantifying') teaching as well as REF: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/teaching/about-the-tef/
New Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) - Gold, Silver, Bronze (like the Olympics), together with 'requires improvement' - nod to the UK's infamous schools Ofsted evaluation/rankings (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted).
It goes on, 'The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS) that aims to encourage higher education providers to improve and deliver excellence in the areas that students care about the most: teaching, learning and student outcomes’
Worse: 'Students have the opportunity to submit their views on the quality of their educational experience and outcomes through a student submission.' This is on top of the National Student Survey (i.e. don't upset the customer). The problem then comes when we take our eye off the ball, so to speak, and focus on the evaluation result as objective, be all and end all badge of success. Let the games begin.
In contrast to a focus on excellent teaching for its own sake, which students may be challenged by and find hard, but impactful in terms learning. Anecdotally, I found there is not always a positive correlation between student survey score, and student learning/quality of student outcomes.
And, in terms evaluation through numbers of papers/ranked journals - we have a race to the bottom with faculty objectifying number of papers/and venues as goal - rather than paper as report on solid research project. I am (we are?) either too idealistic or naïve to think the former will ever not be the case. Still, it's a problem when it becomes too influential as objective aim. Not so much the fault of the faculty of course, as it is systemic, structural issues around evaluation - back to the original point.
My own take is that a balance is required. Ali is correct in a need to slow down, but also not to stand still.
Cheers,
James.
Prof. James A. Self
Tenured Associate Professor of Design | Department of Design<https://design.unist.ac.kr/> | UNIST<https://www.unist.ac.kr/> | t. +82 (0)52 217 2722 | e. [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Director, Design Thinking Research Lab, UNIST: w. Design Thinking Research Lab<http://www.designthinkingresearch.com/>
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From: PhD-Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Ali Ilhan <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 06 April 2023 21:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Design research journal rankings
Dear all,
These are excellent comments, I need time to digest.
But a quick note: Another part of the problem is the sheer volume of
scientific production, which actually is detrimental to progress:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021636118
Here is and excerpt:
“The size of scientific fields may impede the rise of new ideas. Examining
1.8 billion citations among 90 million papers across 241 subjects, we find
a deluge of papers does not lead to turnover of central ideas in a field,
but rather to ossification of canon.”
Like many other areas, we need to slow down, but I am not sure how that can
be achieved, given the institutional pressures in place (sheer volume of
new PhD production is in the same bandwagon) . It feels like we are all
digging very deep holes with very very tiny needles.
All the best,
Ali
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