Legal Research in Search of Attention: A Quantitative Assessment
King’s Law Journal, Volume 27, 2016, pp. 170-187
23 Pages Posted: 12 Sep 2016
Date Written: September 9, 2016
Abstract
In today’s world it is easy to make research publicly available by putting it online. But this improved availability raises the question how to produce research that actually gets attention. Bibliometrics can contribute to this debate. Based on a sample of 1107 papers of SSRN’s Legal Scholarship Network, this article finds that a short title, a top-20 university affiliation, US authorship, and writing about topics of corporate law and international law have a positive effect on downloads and/or abstract views. The article also reflects on the implications of these findings, in particular how they may be related to contentious attempts to identify what is "good" legal research through metrics and peer review.
Keywords: legal research; higher education; impact metrics; bibliometrics; REF
JEL Classification: C80, I23, K00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation