Research evaluation is complex, quality consists of many dimensions, and quality assessment is often contentious. In her doctoral project, Jing investigated how the notion of journal quality has been constructed in the Chinese publication system. She analysed what journal qualities have been valued in scientific publishing and publication evaluation aspects in China from multiple actors’ perspectives.
Chapter 2 identifies how the specificities of the Chinese publication system differ from the international one.
Chapter 3 zooms in on a concrete journal metric, namely journal lists, to examine the underlying values and quality criteria for assessing journals by governing actors that create such journal lists.
Chapter 4 follows the journal list initiatives to look at researchers’ reactions to such a new evaluation benchmark, identifying the interplay of dynamics across individual, institutional, and national valuation regimes.
Chapter 5 turns to central actors in the scholarly publishing system, journal editors and publishers, to look at their journal development strategies to compete for attention and resources. An analytical model, the ‘journal attention cycle’, has been developed to help understand the social-economic aspects of running a journal in the Chinese scientific publication system.
Her full dissertation can be accessed through the Radboud Repository.