The international workshop “The Role of Visibility in Academic Evaluation. (E)Valuation Studies in Science and Higher Education”, jointly organized by the Department of Sciences Studies and the Research Group “Reflexive Metrics – Retroaction and practices of quantified orders of worth in science” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Research Cluster “Evaluation Practices in Science and Higher Education” at the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), will take place at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on November 15–16, 2018.
Recent research on academic evaluation indicates that visibility plays an important role in how evaluation procedures take place and what kinds of effects they produce. Questions of blinding, transparency, confidentiality, and anonymity are predominant issues that are constantly discussed. As specific constellations of visibility between evaluation objects and subjects, they are central for configuring the evaluation process. In addition, evaluation procedures also produce visibility through directing attention to positively (or e.g. in cases of scientific misconduct to negatively) evaluated objects, ideas, persons, or practices. In particular, current debates about new ways of peer reviewing, performance measurement through altmetrics, or the rise of academic social media platforms demonstrate that evaluation procedures are configured through specific constellations of visibility that serve at the same time to legitimate evaluation results and to produce and navigate attention.
The workshop aims at bringing together current research on evaluation procedures with sociological perspectives on visibility in the context of science studies and higher education research. We will discuss, on the one hand, how specific constellations of visibility influence evaluation results and their acceptance as legitimate. On the other hand, we will discuss the role of visibility that results from evaluation procedures and currently becomes itself the object of measurement and evaluation.
Registration is required via email (evaluationpractices@dzhw.eu) no later than November 1, 2018.