Professor Marek Kwiek, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Science and Humanities (IAS UAM), led a four-hour seminar at the University of Oxford on 15 March 2022.
The seminar was held at the Center for Global Higher Education, with which it has been working closely for many years as part of its quantitative science research. It was attended by over 150 people from around the world.
The seminar was entitled 'Academic Profession Studies Going Global? What We Gain and What We Lose by Using Big Data'. What do we gain and what do we lose by using Big Data in them?").
https://www.researchcghe.org/events/cghe-seminar/academic-profession-studies-going-global-what-we-gain-and-what-we-lose-by-using-big-data/
The seminar is now available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84X7n85fswI&t=1078s
The theme was the globalisation of research of the academic profession: the question of how to study academics from a global rather than an international and comparative perspective. How to collect and analyse global data? What is the future of this research and what new opportunities are created by global Big Data?
Although surveys have traditionally been used to analyse academic careers, it is now possible to use new data sources (metadata from Scopus or Web of Science databases, data from linked administrative datasets, national registers of researchers, etc.). However, the huge number of observations comes with various limitations.
A comparison of the advantages and limitations of survey research methods (which the author has used extensively for a decade) and bibliometric research methods used in large-scale studies was presented. The main themes of the presentation were the trade-offs involved in using survey and bibliometric methods: data collection, analysis and visualisation; the advantages and disadvantages of Big Data processing in the cloud; the power of raw publication and citation metadata as part of an academic career; the availability of datasets, their combination and running costs.
Global academic staff research now faces opportunities that were difficult to even imagine a decade ago.
The author's research on the global ageing of the academic profession (using the example of 5 million researchers from 38 OECD countries) and the global superclass of highly cited researchers (the 10,000 Highly Cited Researchers of the last decade) is discussed in more detail. The lessons for higher education research from the emergence of Big Data and its growing availability were also analysed.
Prof. Kwiek's three previous seminars also focused on his recent IAS research: male-female collaboration in Polish science as exemplified by 25,000 scientists; publishing in prestigious journals; and the globalisation of science and the growing role of individual scientists.
(1) 'Man-Woman Collaboration Patterns in Science: Lessons from a Study of 25,000 University Professors', 8 December 2020
Seminar description and slides: https://www.researchcghe.org/events/cghe-seminar/man-woman-collaboration-patterns-in-science-lessons-from-a-study-of-25000-university-professors/
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/984OgBJia-c?t=338
(2) 'Elite journals, publishing as prestige-generation, and implications for academic careers', 9 March 2021
Seminar description and slides: https://www.researchcghe.org/events/cghe-seminar/elite-journals-publishing-as-prestige-generation-and-implications-for-academic-careers/
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmzziHGo5LQ&t=553s
(3) 'The Globalization of Science: The Increasing Power of Individual Scientists?", 15 June 2021
Seminar description and slides: https://www.researchcghe.org/events/cghe-seminar/the-globalization-of-science-the-increasing-power-of-individual-scientists/
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/fjfaz8C4pbo?t=289
We invite you to watch the video!