Sustainable Research Quality Assessment Model (SRQAM) for Higher Education Using Regression

Abstract

Although internal evaluation models at research institutions have been developed for comparative research at national and international levels, the quality of inter-institutional systematic research and trend assessment models have not previously been reported in the literature. In this research, a conceptual framework called the Sustainable Research Quality Assessment Model (SRQAM) was developed to evaluate research quality indicators such as the number of publications per year and citations per year in higher education institutions. Subsequently, RQAM was applied to six selected universities in Morocco in order to observe its applicability. SRQAM consists of five steps: Duration determination, selection of research quality indicators such as citations per year (CPY), and trend indicators such as the number of publications (NP), data extraction and statistical analyses. Although paper publication and citations play a vital role in higher education institutions, the literature on publication activities is relatively scarce. Several factors influence the publication and citation rate of the university. Therefore, this article focuses on research quality assessment and discusses publication activities by exploring factors that may increase or decrease the publication and citation rate of higher education institutions. The application of this research model in six institutions from 1996 to 2020 shows that during this period, the highest averages for academic staff (AS), citations per year (CPY) and number of publications (NP) ($\text{AS}=2004.6+317.3,\ \text{CPY}=5954.6\pm 2642.7,\ \text{NP}=749.1\pm 684.2$) was at Mohammed V University, Rabat. SRQAM is a fundamental instrument for institutional research and assessment and can guide research policy.