Nearly three years after causing an international outcry by ranking humanities journals with an A-B-C system based on perceived quality and level of influence, a leading European research agency has released a revised list with nine of 15 disciplines represented and the letter grades eliminated. But the new scheme, which still assigns journals to different tiers, does not seem to be making scholars much happier than the first go-round.
The European Reference Index in the Humanities was first published in 2008 by the European Science Foundation. It was billed as a way to catalog journals in disciplines across the humanities and identify sources of excellence in research. But because it classified publications according to a system that many academics perceived as a worrisome form of grading, the index was panned by scholars and journal editors. Many expressed concern that the three-letter system would be used to evaluate individuals for job promotion and tenure, and that scholars would feel pressured to publish their work only in A journals. Others objected that the categories discriminated against highly regarded and influential publications—putting them in the C class—simply because they covered new or small fields, or were written in nonmajor European languages. Many scholars called for the project to be reconsidered or stopped wholesale.
Following the outcry, the science foundation set up feedback channels through which scholars, journal editors, and publishers could submit information on humanities journals for consideration. Panels of anonymous reviewers have looked over these comments and revised earlier assessments of journals and have taken into account some journals that were not included in 2008, says Michael Worton, chair of the humanities journal project and vice provost of University College in London, as well as a professor of French literature.
The most obvious change for 2011 is the decision to abandon the A-B-C labels. In the new list, journals are categorized as either national in their reach, which is abbreviated as “Nat,” or international, “Int.” Using the journals’ “influence and scope” as the primary criteria, the foundation announced on its Web site, the index further subdivides international journal publications as either “International 1,” or “Int1,” and “International 2,” or “Int2.”
Changes Draw Mixed Reviews
The science foundation says that the backlash against the A-B-C system resulted from “the misunderstanding that the order was qualitatively hierarchical,” according to a statement on its Web site. The real intent, the statement says, was to group similar journals together.
While the new database shows that the foundation has made an effort to respond to the main objections, some critics say the changes do not resolve the basic problems.
The switch to the more descriptive categories is, according to Simon Schaffer, a Cambridge professor of the history of science and the former editor of the British Journal for the History of Science, “not only damaging but circular.” He says this kind of classification tends to reproduce already obvious distinctions—such as the regional nature or narrow focus of a journal.
Patrick Sims-Williams, editor of Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies and a professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, is also skeptical. He argues that renaming the categories is a superficial adjustment that does little to make the index a more useful tool for academics and research organizations. “The recent changes to ERIH are just cosmetic, and it is a massive waste of public money and effort,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Nobody wants it, nobody respects it, and nobody can think of a legitimate use for it.”
Some academics, however, are heartened that the foundation tried to respond to complaints and is concerned about the way its index will be received this time. Craig Howes, director of the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a co-editor of Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, has been vocal in the debate over evaluative techniques for journals, and is impressed by the care the foundation took in presenting its new list and removing the language that he calls “transparently discriminatory.”
He notes, however, that lists like this still could be abused by government or research-grant organizations looking for a simple rubric by which to judge scholarship and allocate money. “I think it’s progress that they’re providing the tools for people to make a more informed decision about what a particular journal means,” Mr. Howes says, “but if you are dealing with people who basically want a number to quantify its value, you can’t do anything about that.”
Mr. Worton says the index is “in a continual process of improvement,” and it is a valuable way to raise the profile of European scholarship internationally. He says he believes that it is in the interest of the academic community to support the effort. For him, the benefits of presenting easily accessible and comprehensive information about the high-quality journals available outweigh the hazards.
“We faced an important choice,” he says. “Do we try and raise the visibility of research in the humanities in Europe and run the risk that our findings ... might be used in inappropriate ways, or do we do nothing?”
The lists of journals in the remaining six humanities disciplines will be published later this year.