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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The argument documented here is familiar, but it's still a point of frustration for researchers working in the humanities and social sciences when they are compared with peers in technology, engineering and mathematics. Simply, the former receive much fewer citations because citations, and papers themselves, play a different role in those disciplines. So it's silly to compare researchers based on citation counts or H-indices. This, for example, is a big difference between me and other researchers in the same building: "Scholars position their approach not through a comprehensive literature review but by way of strategic citations." The 'literature review' approach to science has always seemed odd to me. Don't you actually know the important papers in your field after having worked in it for 15 years? Also, literature reviews actually miss some of the most important work in a field. But - I recognize - it's a perspective thing.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 12:18 p.m.

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