Kalpana Shankar
Biographic Data
| ID | 189263 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kalpana Shankar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kalpana |
| FAMILY NAME | Shankar |
| SIGNATURE | SHANKAR K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College Dublin |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8788-466X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A Crisis of the Professoriate
‘This can’t be the new norm’
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the university sector globally. This article reports on the Australian findings from a large-scale survey of academic staff and their experiences and predictions of the impact of the pandemic on their wellbeing. We report the perceptions of n=370 Australian academics and accounts of their institutions’ responses to COVID-19, analysed using self-determination theory. Respondents report work-related str…
Peer reviewer topic choice and its impact on interrater reliability
One of the main critiques of academic peer review is that interrater reliability (IRR) among reviewers is low. We examine an underinvestigated factor possibly contributing to low IRR: reviewers’ diversity in their topic-criteria mapping (“TC-mapping”). It refers to differences among reviewers pertaining to which topics they choose to emphasize in their evaluations, and how they map those topics onto various evaluation criteria. In this paper we l…
‘The Covid-19 crisis is not the core problem’
This article, drawing on data from an international survey – distributed in the summer of 2020 – explores the experiences and concerns of academic staff (n=167) working in universities in Ireland and their perceptions of their institutions’ early response to the pandemic. Concerns related to transitioning to remote online working, impact on research productivity and culture, and work intensification, as intersected by enhanced managerialism, are …
Analyzing sentiments in peer review reports
Using a novel combination of methods and data sets from two national funding agency contexts, this study explores whether review sentiment can be used as a reliable proxy for understanding peer reviewer opinions. We measure reviewer opinions via their review sentiments on both specific review subjects and proposals’ overall funding worthiness with three different methods: manual content analysis and two dictionary-based sentiment analysis algorit…
Pandemia’
Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-wor…
Grade Language Heterogeneity in Simulation Models of Peer Review
Simulation models have proven to be valuable tools for studying peer review processes. However, the e ects of some of these models' assumptions have not been tested, nor have these models been examined in comparative contexts. In this paper, we address two of these assumptions which go in tandem: ( ) on the granularity of the evaluation scale, and ( ) on the homogeneity of the grade language (i.e. whether reviewers interpret evaluation grades in …
Ethnography, Documents, and Big Data
In the summer of 2011, I joined University College Dublin, Ireland, as a permanent faculty member in the then-named School of Information and Library Studies (now the School of Information and Communication Studies). As an academic working in a European university, I could avail myself of opportunities for European faculty and staff, including the Erasmus mobility program. The Erasmus program has provided teaching and training exchange opportunit…
Algorithmic governance
We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, op…
Studying the History of Social Science Data Archives as Knowledge Infrastructure
We map out a new arena of analysis for knowledge and cyberinfrastructure scholars: Social Science Data Archives (SSDA). SSDA have influenced the international development of the social sciences, research methods, and data standards in the latter half of the twentieth century. They provide entry points to understand how fields organise themselves to be ‘data intensive’. Longitudinal studies of SSDA can increase our understanding of the sustainabil…
Future proofing the digital society
In this article, I briefly introduce digital curation, discuss some of the successes of the process (and a cautionary tale), and invite readers to contribute articles
Wind, Water, and Wi-Fi
In emergencies, information sharing among and between officials, volunteers, and citizens is essential for effective recovery and management. Recently, volunteers and others have been using community technology centers, community wireless networks, and end-user social technologies such as blogs and Wikis to prepare for emergencies and communicate and coordinate response when they happen. This article argues that there is a need for a research age…
Scientific Data Collections and Distributed Collective Practice
Recordkeeping in the production of scientific knowledge
Recordkeeping in the Production of Scientific Knowledge
Algorithmic governance
We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, op…
Recordkeeping in the Production of Scientific Knowledge
Pandemia’
Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-wor…
Wind, Water, and Wi-Fi
In emergencies, information sharing among and between officials, volunteers, and citizens is essential for effective recovery and management. Recently, volunteers and others have been using community technology centers, community wireless networks, and end-user social technologies such as blogs and Wikis to prepare for emergencies and communicate and coordinate response when they happen. This article argues that there is a need for a research age…
Recordkeeping in the production of scientific knowledge
Recordkeeping in the Production of Scientific Knowledge
Scientific Data Collections and Distributed Collective Practice
Wind, Water, and Wi-Fi
In emergencies, information sharing among and between officials, volunteers, and citizens is essential for effective recovery and management. Recently, volunteers and others have been using community technology centers, community wireless networks, and end-user social technologies such as blogs and Wikis to prepare for emergencies and communicate and coordinate response when they happen. This article argues that there is a need for a research age…
Studying the History of Social Science Data Archives as Knowledge Infrastructure
We map out a new arena of analysis for knowledge and cyberinfrastructure scholars: Social Science Data Archives (SSDA). SSDA have influenced the international development of the social sciences, research methods, and data standards in the latter half of the twentieth century. They provide entry points to understand how fields organise themselves to be ‘data intensive’. Longitudinal studies of SSDA can increase our understanding of the sustainabil…
Future proofing the digital society
In this article, I briefly introduce digital curation, discuss some of the successes of the process (and a cautionary tale), and invite readers to contribute articles
Algorithmic governance
We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, op…
Ethnography, Documents, and Big Data
In the summer of 2011, I joined University College Dublin, Ireland, as a permanent faculty member in the then-named School of Information and Library Studies (now the School of Information and Communication Studies). As an academic working in a European university, I could avail myself of opportunities for European faculty and staff, including the Erasmus mobility program. The Erasmus program has provided teaching and training exchange opportunit…
Grade Language Heterogeneity in Simulation Models of Peer Review
Simulation models have proven to be valuable tools for studying peer review processes. However, the e ects of some of these models' assumptions have not been tested, nor have these models been examined in comparative contexts. In this paper, we address two of these assumptions which go in tandem: ( ) on the granularity of the evaluation scale, and ( ) on the homogeneity of the grade language (i.e. whether reviewers interpret evaluation grades in …
‘The Covid-19 crisis is not the core problem’
This article, drawing on data from an international survey – distributed in the summer of 2020 – explores the experiences and concerns of academic staff (n=167) working in universities in Ireland and their perceptions of their institutions’ early response to the pandemic. Concerns related to transitioning to remote online working, impact on research productivity and culture, and work intensification, as intersected by enhanced managerialism, are …
Analyzing sentiments in peer review reports
Using a novel combination of methods and data sets from two national funding agency contexts, this study explores whether review sentiment can be used as a reliable proxy for understanding peer reviewer opinions. We measure reviewer opinions via their review sentiments on both specific review subjects and proposals’ overall funding worthiness with three different methods: manual content analysis and two dictionary-based sentiment analysis algorit…
Pandemia’
Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-wor…
‘This can’t be the new norm’
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the university sector globally. This article reports on the Australian findings from a large-scale survey of academic staff and their experiences and predictions of the impact of the pandemic on their wellbeing. We report the perceptions of n=370 Australian academics and accounts of their institutions’ responses to COVID-19, analysed using self-determination theory. Respondents report work-related str…
Peer reviewer topic choice and its impact on interrater reliability
One of the main critiques of academic peer review is that interrater reliability (IRR) among reviewers is low. We examine an underinvestigated factor possibly contributing to low IRR: reviewers’ diversity in their topic-criteria mapping (“TC-mapping”). It refers to differences among reviewers pertaining to which topics they choose to emphasize in their evaluations, and how they map those topics onto various evaluation criteria. In this paper we l…
A Crisis of the Professoriate
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Knowledge management (6 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Law (4 works)