Assessment of Research Activities and Research Quality at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) by Means of Research Outputs

Abstract

TUT Library has been active in analysing the research activities and research quality at university’s departments and the staff since 1980’s. This poster outlines the process of the information management of the research outputs at TUT. The library is responsible for producing reports on university’s research outputs. The reporting on scientific expert tasks and publications for different purposes is produced via the university’s internal reporting system called Varasto. The material is collected and stored in 24 departments and transferred to Varasto from university’s current research information system called TUT Portfolio. TUT Portfolio is a portal to the academic expertise at TUT. It is maintained by the library and is freely available for all users on the web. Three different reports of departments’ achievements are produced monthly: the departments’ performance-based bonus system, university’s official statistics and the Ministry of Education statistics called Kota. The reports based on similar criteria are produced also for every researcher at TUT. At the end of the year, the university shares the profit money to the departments based on their achievements. The publications and scientific expertise tasks generate the different bonus according to the quality. The articles published in the peer-reviewed international journals are the most important. There are altogether 12 bonus categories in the university’s performance-based bonus system. The library is responsible for three of them. 30% of the bonus money is shared by these three categories. Finnish universities adopted the new salary system and the important part of the system is the individual salary component based on the employee’s competence and performance. The reports on the publications of the whole staff for the assessment panels are produced by this system. The assessment of the research outputs is one method in order to assess research quality and has certain limitations, which had to be recognised. The university has always made an effort to assure the quality of the process of information management related to data collection and reporting. This was recognised in the project by Ministry of Education. TUT was one of the three universities in the large project by the ministry on disciplinary differences in publishing practices. TUT introduces in the project technical universities. The results of assessments have also been introduced in TUT magazines.