What is it about?
The disciplines of History and Social Sciences are adopting the thesis by published papers as an alternative to the established monograph as a format for the PhD. This change implicates students in the academic economy.
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Why is it important?
The change emphasizes production of papers to constitute the thesis. But a tension arises over the judgements made about quality. Do university criteria of quality apply? Or do journal criteria apply? Are these the same criteria? Should they be the same? Should they differ? Does it matter? (yes, it probably does...)
Perspectives
The institutionalist literature perceives ‘the doctoral thesis’ and ‘the academic, peer-reviewed paper’ as long-standing social institutions. Historically, they have been very differently defined or constructed. Today, universities are increasingly an instrument of marketization but marketization conflicts with non-market-based systems such as peer review.
Dr John Rigby
University of Manchester
The institutionalist literature perceives ‘the doctoral thesis’ and ‘the academic, peer-reviewed paper’ as long-standing social institutions. Historically, they have been very differently defined or constructed. Today, universities are increasingly an instrument of marketization but marketization conflicts with non-market-based systems such as peer review.
Dr Barbara Jones
University of Manchester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bringing the doctoral thesis by published papers to the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A quantitative easing? A small study of doctoral thesis submission rules and practice in two disciplines in the UK, Scientometrics, May 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03483-9.
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