The Writing and Publishing of Scholarly Monographs in Taiwan’s Sociology Discipline: from the Perspective of Research Evaluation
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Chang, Tien-Hsin
Abstract
The issue of university research evaluation, which concerns the appropriate evaluation of departments, disciplines and researchers, has become an important topic in the academic community. The research topics, characteristics and research outputs of the humanities and social sciences (HSS) are different from that of the natural sciences (NS), therefore, the evaluation methods used in the HSS and NS may also differ. Scholarly monographs are highly valued research outputs in the humanities and social sciences. However, there is a lack of discussion on the evaluation of scholarly monographs in the scientific literature. The purpose of this study is to understand the scholars’ experience of scholarly monographs in research evaluations, and to synthesize their opinions and recommended solutions for the current system of scholarly monograph evaluation. This study interviewed 14 sociologists in Taiwan to understand their perspectives on monograph writing and research evaluation, their experiences of the writing and publishing of scholarly monographs, their opinions on the reviewing of monographs and their thoughts on the various evaluation systems in the sociology discipline. The results show that respondents considered scholarly monographs undervalued in research evaluations. Under the prevailing evaluation systems that favor the natural sciences, the institution of SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) and TSSCI (Taiwan Social Science Citation Index) and English publishing, the various promotion systems and incentives have had limited stimulation on the writing and publishing of (Chinese) scholarly monographs. The reasons why sociologists write monographs are diverse, however, they have little correlation to the current promotion and reward systems. In the process of writing and publishing monographs, scholars may confront various challenges, such as pressure from the research evaluation of universities and difficulties in finding an academic press. In the monograph reviewing system, reviewers and reviewees are faced with varying problems, and the interviewees provided various suggestions on establishing a transparent and fair monograph reviewing system. The interviewees also offered advice on the improvement of various evaluation systems in the sociology discipline. In conclusion, this study provides specific suggestions to monograph writers, the academic presses and the administrators of various academic institutions, in hopes of contributing to the publication of scholarly monographs and the improvement of research evaluation systems.
Subjects
Research Evaluation
Monograph
Academic Writing
Academic Publishing
Sociology
Type
thesis
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