ERA journal rankings ditched!

[OFF-TOPIC] "There is clear and consistent evidence that the [ERA journal] rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings. One common example was the setting of targets for publication in A and A* journals by institutional research managers." - Senator the Honourable Kim Carr.

Really? Let me count the ways. And it took how long and how many dollars to be squandered in order to figure that out? For crying out loud. The only thing worse than the presence of the rankings was their application as a means to gain quantitative measures of research quality. To some very small extent my faith that commonsense sometimes prevails has been vindicated. Of course I am not so naive as to believe that this system won't be replaced by something more insidious. But until then...
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