3.3 ERA methodology
ERA was announced in 2008 as a new national evaluation of university research quality. Since that time, rounds have been run in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2018. While the ERA methodology has matured over each round, the principles underpinning the ERA indicators, agreed upon in 2008, have not changed. The ERA Indicator Principles are at Appendix A. The key quality indicators continue to be peer review or citation analysis, depending on the discipline. 3.3.1 Unit of evaluation In ERA, the unit of evaluation is the broad or specific discipline, as defined by the ANZSRC two-digit and four-digit Field of Research codes, respectively, for an eligible university. 10 An example of the ANZSRC 2020 hierarchical classification structure is shown below:
Division……39 Education
Group…………….3903 Education Systems
Field……………………..390304 Primary Education
In general, for the purpose of this consultation paper, two-digit Field of Research codes are referred to as ‘broad disciplines’. Four-digit Field of Research codes are referred to as ‘specific disciplines’. ‘Disciplines’ refers to the broad and specific disciplines, collectively. For the purpose of ERA, when referring to a discipline at a particular university, ‘unit of evaluation’ is used. Universities assign each item submitted for an ERA round (i.e. research outputs, researchers, research income and applied measures) to one or more specific disciplines.
3.3.2 ERA methodology at a glance
An ERA round process
An ERA round opens with submission of data by universities for evaluation. Evaluations are conducted by Research Evaluation Committees through a series of individual and committee evaluation processes. These are outlined in the ERA 2018 Evaluation Handbook.
Indicators
The ERA indicator suite has been developed to align with the research behaviours of each discipline. For this reason, there are differences in the selection of indicators applicable to each discipline. The key quality indicators for ERA are either citation analysis, or peer review of a 30 per cent representative sample of research outputs. Citation analysis is used more commonly for disciplines in the natural sciences 11 . Peer review is used more commonly in the humanities and social sciences.
10 Eligibility of Australian universities is determined by whether a university is listed in Table A or Table B of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. 11 Exceptions were 0101 Pure Mathematics which is assessed as a peer review discipline. 08 Information and Computing Sciences, 1005 Communications Technologies, and 1006 Computer Hardware have also been assessed as peer review disciplines since ERA 2012.
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