Evaluating Biology: A Scientometric Study of a University Biology Department

Abstract

In the present report, professor Per O. Seglen deals in depth with the methodological issues that arose in connection to an evaluation of the Department of Biology at the University of Oslo in 1999. His aim is neither to criticize nor to defend the quantitative approach of the evalution, but to give insight into the considerations and decisions that were made in the process of a complex institutional evaluation. In NIFU’s view, the report has clarifying discussions of important questions that may well be neglected, but cannot be avoided, in evaluations with similar approaches. The report may thus serve as a model for the methodological work in new evalutions, in addition to being a contribution to scientometric and research policy studies in general.