Digital Commons Network^™

Social science research communities around the world face pressures for quantitative evaluation imposed from outside. Traditional methods of allocating jobs and research funding may not be seen as sufficiently merit-based to ensure research excellence and international competitiveness. In this environment, the preferred evaluation methodology tends to be SSCI-based bibliometrics, more or less exclusively. In this paper, I reflect on the merits of this approach by examining the nature of the social science literature as it relates to bibliometric evaluation. The argument is based on a thorough review of the literature of social science bibliometric methodology.