Academic profession studies going global? What we gain and what we lose by using big data

What happens when we want to explore the academic profession from a global rather than cross-national comparative perspective?

How to study the expanding academic profession globally and how to collect and analyse the data? 

What is the future of academic profession research and what new opportunities are provided by global Big Data? 

While academic profession research has traditionally used academic surveys, nowadays new complementary data sources can be used. However, huge numbers of observations come at a cost, compared with survey data and instruments. 

Professor Kwiek will compare advantages and limitations of survey methods and large-scale bibliometric methods. Major topics will be trade-offs in data collection and data analysis, advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing, the power of raw publication and citation metadata, and dataset availability, mergers and running costs.

He will discuss recent research on the global aging of the academic profession and the global super-class of highly cited researchers. He will also explore the general implications for higher education research.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in higher education, globalisation and big data.

Related links

• Centre for Global Higher Education
• Department of Education, Practice and Society