The Italian Academic Research System and Its Evaluation: A Conceptual Framework Inception

In this paper, we introduce the main topics and the initial settings of an Italian PRIN project aimed at investigating how the systematic adoption of systems for the evaluation of research in the Italian academic context may influence research outcomes. We motivate the need to adopt and adapt a conceptual framework, which may identify, define and describe the relevant entities involved in the evaluation process, their measurable properties and relations. We then present the first draft of an ontology derived from an existing ontology about the academic world, namely the VIVO ontology, and the criteria for its design. We report the steps taken to modify the received ontology in order to fit it to our purposes, with an interdisciplinary contribution to the selection and adaptation of entities. Novel considerations about the use of formal conceptual systems and the contribution of our work to the socio-technical view are finally drawn, and some further directions of the project are proposed.