Evidence Summary


 


Libraries’ Contributions to the Quality of UK
University Research Environments Were Not Acknowledged in REF 2014, but Could
Be Made More Visible in REF 2021


 


A Review of:


Walker,
D. (2020). Libraries and the REF: How do librarians contribute to research
excellence? Insights, 33(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.497 


  


Reviewed by:


Barbara M. Wildemuth


Professor Emeritus


School of Information & Library Science


University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America


Email: wildemuth@unc.edu 


 


Received: 2 Dec. 2020                                                                Accepted:  22 Jan. 2021


 


 


 2021 Wildemuth. This
is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.




 


 


DOI: 10.18438/eblip29889


 





 


Abstract


 


Objective – To measure the extent to which
libraries’ contributions to United Kingdom (UK) university research excellence
were referenced in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 unit-level
research environment statements, and to make recommendations to libraries for
increasing their visibility in the research setting.


 


Design – Content analysis of an existing
corpus.


 


Setting – Evaluation of research environments
conducted as part of the UK REF 2014 assessment.


 


Subjects – 1,891 unit-level research
environment statements submitted for REF 2014.


 


Methods – Each unit-level research environment
statement was categorized in terms of how extensively it referenced library or
librarian contributions: no mention, brief mention, or substantive mention. The
frequency and percentage of each level of mention are reported overall and by
disciplinary panel. 


 


Main Results – Across all panels, only 25.8% of the
statements included substantive references to the library or librarians; most of
these were lists of electronic and physical collections, but they also included
discussions of the research support services offered by librarians. There were
disciplinary differences in the extent of the references to libraries, from
7.2% containing substantive references in a panel examining science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) units to 44.0% containing
substantive references in the panel examining arts and humanities units.


 


Conclusion – In REF 2014, libraries and
librarians were rarely discussed in unit-level research environment statements.
While this lack of representation may be due to shortcomings of the library’s
relationship with the university’s research office, librarians could use a
number of approaches to becoming more visible in the REF 2021 research
environment statements. Specifically, they could highlight their roles in:
ensuring discoverability and accessibility of information resources to
researchers; improving research practices through teaching informational and organizational
skills, providing direct support to research students and staff, and providing
research data management services; managing the research information systems
that capture and make discoverable the university’s non-article research
outputs; providing support in relation to the responsible use of bibliometrics
and other measures of article quality and impact; further developing article
impact by training researchers to use social media to their advantage;
developing open research initiatives; and assisting with the REF submission
process.


 


Commentary


 


Walker’s study is relatively straightforward and well
conducted (Glynn, 2006). The study sample included the complete population of
research environment statements submitted for REF 2014, so no inferences about
the generalizability of the results need to be made. There is some ambiguity in
the research methods description: The criteria for a “mention” of a library are
not provided. Also, there is no report of inter-rater reliability in the
categorization, so it is assumed that Walker conducted the analysis on his own.
Neither of these methodological issues is likely to cast much doubt on the
overall conclusions of the study, since the categorization scheme was
relatively simple and relatively objective. The results of the study are
clearly presented and the examination of disciplinary differences is
appropriate. The primary way in which the study might have been improved is
through a more detailed qualitative examination of the substantive references
to the library’s role that consisted of more than a list of resources in the
collection. Such an examination may have yielded data that would more strongly
support Walker’s recommendations.


 


About half of Walker’s paper reports on the analysis
of the research environment statements, and the other half focuses on ways that
libraries and librarians can improve their visibility within their own
institutions and in the REF 2021 process. These recommendations are consistent
with, but provide more specificity than, previously published recommendations
related to positioning academic libraries within their institutions (Boyce et
al., 2019; Cox, 2018). In addition, the recommendations are useful because they
are discussed at a level of detail that is directly applicable to individual
institutions. Academic librarians in the UK will be able to identify specific
ideas that most closely fit their own settings and work with their university
research offices to incorporate those ideas in the REF 2021 research
environment statements.


 


The
publication of Walker’s paper was timely, since the REF 2021 submissions were
being completed as it was published. Thus, the results of the REF 2014 analysis
and the recommendations that came from it could be directly applied by academic
libraries in the UK. The results and recommendations would also be directly
applicable in other countries that employ some form of performance-based
university research funding system, as outlined by Hicks (2012), that includes
the evaluation of the research environment in addition to research outputs.
Beyond the context of a national research assessment exercise, Walker’s
recommendations will be useful to academic librarians in their own strategic
planning. For example, most academic libraries would benefit by developing and
marketing research data management services; these services could be directly
aligned with and linked to the university’s research strategy, making the
library’s critical role more visible to university administrators. Acting on
some of Walker’s recommendations may help academic libraries deliver on the
maxim that the library is the heart of the university.


 


References


 


Boyce, G., Greenwood, A., Haworth, A., Hodgson, J., Jones, C., Marsh,
G., Mawson, M., & Sadler, R. (2019). Visions of value: Leading the
development of a view of the University Library in the 21st century.
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 45(5), 102046. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102046 


 


Cox, J. (2018). Positioning the academic library within the institution:
A literature review. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 24(3-4),
217-241. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2018.1466342 


 


Glynn, L. (2006). A critical appraisal tool for library and information
research. Library Hi Tech, 24(3), 387-399. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830610692154 


 


Hicks, D. (2012). Performance-based university research funding systems.
Research Policy, 41(2),
251-261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2011.09.007