VALUTARE LA VALUTAZIONE QUALITÀ DELLA RICERCA SCIENTIFICA E «SCIENTOMETRIA».

The Authors analyse the conceptual premises of the use of “bibliometrics” for the evaluation of scientific publications, both in general, for any scientific field, and, more particularly, for social studies and humanities. The Authors do not disagree that it would be desirable, in an ideal world, to “measure” objectively and mathematically the quality of scientific (and particularly historical) research, but they contend that there exists no such method to attain this result. Bibliometrics have been introduced to “measure” with numerical and mathematical methods the “dissemination” of scientific literature, not to evaluate the quality of such literature. The principle underlying the use of bibliometric methods, such as “impact factor” or similar methods, for the evaluation of researchers is both conceptually wrong and misleading and causes distortion in the development of scientific research and publications.

L’articolo analizza le premesse concettuali dell’uso della bibliometria per la valutazione della produzione scientifica con particolare riferimento agli studi umanistici e sociali, analizzando le distorsioni di un processo di valutazione che intende trasformarsi tout court in scientometria.