Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities

Self-assessment of faculty members of Tabriz University toward social impact of their academic researches

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

H. Atapour 1
A. Hamdipour 2
P. Akbarzadeh 2

1 Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran (Corresponding Author)

2 Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22035/isih.2021.3718.3884
Abstract
The paper intends to investigate the viewpoints of faculty members of the University of Tabriz toward the social impact of their researches. We applied a survey method for the data collection, with the research population being academic staff, of which, 20% were selected using stratified quota sampling method. As a whole, 153 faculty members of the University of Tabriz participated in this study. The results showed that the mean score of the self-assessment of the participating faculties was 8.72 and the mean of the research population was between 8.29 and 9.15 intervals with 95% confidence, which is the middle range of achievable scores. The self-assessment of major departments toward social impact has had a significant difference. It was found that "industry", "environment", "education", "policy and policy making" and "agriculture" are potential areas for the aforementioned faculties. Results also showed the higher the number of research contracts of faculty members with other organizations, the higher their self-assessment toward the social impact of their researches. Furthermore, some faculties having a working relationship with other organizations could assess the social impact of their researches more than those lacking such relationship. As such it was found that, encouraging the faculties to have working relationship and research contracts with other organizations could increase their attitude toward social impact. In other words, making them more engaged with real issues, including social could increase the impact of their researches.

Keywords

Self-assessment
social impact of research
faculty members
Tabriz University
extensive research impacts

Subjects

Ahmadi, M., Rasoolzadeaghdam, S., & Mohammadifar, Y. (2012). The obstacles and solutions in using human sciences research. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 4 (2), 17-34. doi: 10.7508/isih.2012.14.002

Atapour, H. (2017). Measuring the Social Impact of Science: Methods, Indicators, and Challenges. Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Scientometrics (pp 1-13; Vol. 2). Jan. 26 & 27, 2017, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

Azimi, A., Sanatjoo, A., Dayani, M. H., & Fattahi, R. (2017). Knowledge translation and an assessment of its effectiveness in medical fields. Human Information Interaction, 4 (2), 1-16.

Babalhavaeji, F., Tajedini, O., Nooshinfard, F., & Hariri, N. (2013). Composing self-evaluation tools for knowledge translation related to social science researchers. Journal of Academic librarianship and Information Research, 47 (1), 49-64. doi: 10.22059/JLIB.2013.36211

Beise, M., & Stahl, H. (1999). Public research and industrial innovations in Germany. Research policy, 28(4), 397-422.

Bornmann, L. (2013). What is societal impact of research and how can it be assessed? A literature survey. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(2), 217-233. doi: 10.1002/asi.22803

Bornmann, L. (2015). Measuring impact in research evaluations: a thorough discussion of methods for, effects of and problems with impact measurements. Higher Education, 1-13. doi: 10.1007/s10734-016-9995-x

Bornmann, L., & Marx, W. (2014). How should the societal impact of research be generated and measured? A proposal for a simple and practicable approach to allow interdisciplinary comparisons. Scientometrics, 98, 211–219. doi: 10.1007/s11192-013-1020-x

Bornmann, L., Haunschild, R., & Marx, W. (2016). Policy documents as sources for measuring societal impact: how often is climate change research mentioned in policy-related documents?. Scientometrics, 109(3), 1477-1495. doi: 10.1007/s11192-016-2115-y

Buxton, M., & Hanney, S. (1994). Assessing payback from Department of Health Research and Development: preliminary report. HERG research report.

CWTS Leiden Ranking 2019. Retrieved from https://www.leidenranking.com/ranking/2019/list

Ehsani, V., Azami, M., Najafi, S. M. B., & Soheili, F. (2017a). The efficacy of Iran increasing researches in the country development. Iranian Journal of Information Processing and Management, 32 (3), 631-660.

Ehsani, V., Azami, M., Najafi, S. M. B., & Soheili, F. (2017b). The efficacy of Iran increasing researches in the country development. Iranian Journal of Information Processing and Management, 33(1), 25-52. doi: 10.7508/ISIH.2012.14.002

Erfanmanesh, M., Rohani, V. (2014). Correlation among scholarly and social influence measures of researchers: A case study of scientometrics research, Library and Information Science, 16(4): 145-171.

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.

Grant, J. (1999). Evaluating the outcomes of biomedical research on healthcare. Research Evaluation, 8(1), 33-38. doi: 10.3152/147154499781777658

Hafeznia, M. R. (2017). An introduction to the research method in humanities (total revision with additions). Tehran, Iran: SAMT.

Hosseini, M. A., kermanshahani, F., Ahmadi, S., Sadeghi, T., Mirbaha, S., & Safarizadeh, M. (2015). A study on status of knowledge translation in Qazvin university of Medical Sciences. Research in Medical Education, 7 (2), 52-60.

Islamic world Science Citation database (2019). Ranking of universities and research institutes of Iran (2017-2018). Retrieved from https://ur.isc.gov.ir/

Joly, P. B., Gaunand, A., Colinet, L., Larédo, P., Lemarié, S., & Matt, M. (2015). ASIRPA: A comprehensive theory-based approach to assessing the societal impacts of a research organization. Research Evaluation, 24(4), 440-453. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvv015

Jones, T. H., & Hanney, S. (2016). Tracing the indirect societal impacts of biomedical research: development and piloting of a technique based on citations. Scientometrics, 107(3), 975-1003. doi: 10.1007/s11192-016-1895-4

Klautzer, L., Hanney, S., Nason, E., Rubin, J., Grant, J., & Wooding, S. (2011). Assessing policy and practice impacts of social science research: the application of the payback framework to assess the future of work programme. Research Evaluation, 20(3), 201-209. doi: 10.3152/095820211X13118583635675

Kousha, K., & Thelwall, M. (2015). Patent citation analysis with Google. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(1), 48-61. doi: 10.1002/asi.23608

Langfeldt, L., & Scordato, L. (2015). Assessing the broader impacts of research: A review of methods and practices (working paper). Retrieved from https://nifu.brage.unit.no/nifu-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/282742/NIFUworkingpaper2015-8.pdf?sequence=1

Lewison, G., & Sullivan, R. (2008). The impact of cancer research: how publications influence UK cancer clinical guidelines. British journal of cancer, 98(12), 1944-1950. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6604405

Mansfield, E. (1991). Academic research and industrial innovation. Research Policy, 20(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1016/0048-7333(91)90080-A

Moghimi, T., Arasteh, H., & Mohammadkhani, K. (2016). A model for improving science diplomacy through interdisciplinary aspects in higher education and foreign policy systems: Case study of Khaje Nasir-e Toosi University. Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 8 (4), 195-224. doi: 10.22035/ISIH.2016.232

Molas-Gallart, J., D’Este, P., Llopis, O., & Rafols, I. (2016). Towards an alternative framework for the evaluation of translational research initiatives. Research Evaluation, 25(3), 235-243. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvv027

Molas-Gallart, J., Salter, A., Patel, P., Scott, A., & Duran, X. (2002). Measuring third stream activities. Final report to the Russell Group of Universities. Brighton: SPRU, University of Sussex.

Mozafari, F., Padashi asl, K., Shamsi, L., & Boudaghi, A. (2011). The evaluation of role and status of interdisciplinary in relationship of university – industry. Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 4(1), 25-40. doi: 10.7508/ISIH.2012.13.002

Narin, F., Hamilton, K. S., & Olivastro, D. (1997). The increasing linkage between US technology and public science. Research policy, 26(3), 317-330. doi: 10.1016/S0048-7333(97)00013-9

Nason, E., Curran, B., Hanney, S., Janta, B., Hastings, G., O'Driscoll, M., & Wooding, S. (2011). Evaluating health research funding in Ireland: assessing the impacts of the Health Research Board of Ireland's funding activities. Research Evaluation, 20(3), 193-200. doi: 10.3152/095820211X12941371876823

Niederkrotenthaler, T., Dorner, T.E., & Maier, M. (2011). Development of a practical tool to measure the impact of publications on the society based on focus group discussions with scientists. BMC public Health, 11, 588. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-11-588

Phillips, P., Moutinho, L., & Godinho, P. (2017). Developing and testing a method to measure academic societal impact. Higher Education Quarterly, 00, 1–20. doi: 10.1111/hequ.12154

Priem, J., Taraborelli, D., Groth, P., & Neylon, C. (2010). Altmetrics: A manifesto. Retrieved from http://altmetrics.org/manifesto

Sedighi, M. (2019). The role of social Media in Assessing the Impact of Research; Case study, the field of scientometrics. Iranian Journal of Information Processing and Management, 34 (2), 765-792.

Solans-Domènech, M., MV Pons, J., Adam, P., Grau, J., & Aymerich, M. (2019). Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure research impact. Research Evaluation, 28(3), 253-262. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvz007

Spaapen, J., & Van Drooge, L. (2011). Introducing ‘productive interactions’ in social impact assessment. Research Evaluation, 20(3), 211-218. doi: 10.3152/095820211X12941371876742

Tajeddini, O., Azami, M., & Mousavi, A. S. (2017). An experimental model of transforming ideas into effectin humanities Iran. National Studies on Librarianship and Informaion Organization, 27 (4), 83-101.

Thelwall, M., & Maflahi, N. (2015). Guideline references and academic citations as evidence of the clinical value of health research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. doi: 10.1002/asi.23432

Weißhuhn, P., Helming, K., & Ferretti, J. (2017). Research impact assessment in agriculture—A review of approaches and impact areas. Research Evaluation, 27(1), 36-42. doi: 10.1093/reseval/rvx034

Send comment about this article
Enter Name.
Enter a valid email address.
Enter a vaid affiliation.
Enter comments (At leaset 10 words)
CAPTCHA Image
Enter Security Code Correctly.

  • Receive Date 21 December 2020
  • Revise Date 19 February 2021
  • Accept Date 05 June 2021

Home

Editorial Board

Publication Ethics

Reviewers

Submission

Contact Us