Measuring the Role of the Humanities, a Conversation with Stephen Karian

Measuring the Role of the Humanities, a Conversation with Stephen Karian

"Research Metrics and the Role of the Humanities at Research Universities"

The Institute for Humanities Research invites faculty, students and community members to a conversation with George Justice and Stephen Karian, whose research has led to more accurate and informative rankings and assessments of humanities programs and research.

A few years ago, the University of Missouri, reeling from campus protests and turnover in leadership, began to make more explicit use of research metrics created by Academic Analytics, a firm that contracts with universities to provide analysis on faculty research in a national context. Stephen Karian looked at the information he could find. Most of what Academic Analytics does is proprietary and divulged only to campus leaders at the universities that have subscribed to its services. Karian saw that the metrics for the humanities units were flawed to the point of their being useless, even misleading. Join us as George Justice, who has published on the NSF HERD rankings for the humanities, interviews Karian about what he discovered and what it means for the humanities.

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Ross-Blakley Hall