Kramer and Waks – Bibliometrics and Qualitative Assessment: A Pragmatist Approach

In this presentation, we offer a Deweyan assessment of the problematic situation surrounding how to assess successful scholarly work toward career advancement. Bibliometric assessment of the reach of academic essays poses a new method of assessing academic work. Yet this system poses new problems, focusing on surface popularity of research, increasingly designed to pop-up in Google Scholar, Academia, and other algorithmic search engines. When careers are assessed on such popularity, content is largely overlooked and is replaced by reach, without questioning the value of such audiences and their responses to this work. We survey different global attempts to utilize such assessment schemes, from the Netherlands to China, and suggest potential ameliorative paths forward.