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Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions pp 1–7Cite as

Academic Evaluation in Higher Education

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Synonyms

Academic judgment; Assessment; Peer review

Definition

Academic evaluation is a social process taking place in different arenas in which values, worths, virtues, or meanings are produced, diffused, assessed, legitimated, or institutionalized with respect to academic products and their producers.

Introduction

The world of academia is permeated with evaluations. Academic processes of evaluation play a central role in both the production and reception of scholarly work as well as for the status of academic entities like scholars, departments, or universities. Some of these evaluations are largely informal, taking place, for example, in small-group interactions. But there is also a wide array of evaluations in academia that are fairly formalized, such as letters of recommendation and peer reviews of journal manuscripts. Rankings of universities according to research performance are among the most standardized forms of evaluation.

Evaluation has a central place in academia because...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, Universität Bonn, Heussallee 18-24, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Julian Hamann

  2. Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Stefan Beljean

Authors
  1. Julian Hamann
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  2. Stefan Beljean
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julian Hamann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. CIPES, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro Teixeira

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Hamann, J., Beljean, S. (2017). Academic Evaluation in Higher Education. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_295-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_295-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

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