Tuesday 6 September 2022

The Metric Tide Revisited

As part of FRAP (The Future Research Assessment Programme), an expert panel has been invited to lead a review of the role of metrics in research management and assessment. This review, The Metric Tide Revisited, will take a short, sharp, evidence-informed look at current and potential uses of metrics against a set of tightly-defined objectives to: Revisit the conclusions and recommendations of the last detailed review of these questions, The Metric Tide (2015), and assess progress against these. Consider whether developments over recent years in the infrastructures, methodologies and uses of research metrics negate or change any of those 2015 conclusions or suggest additional priorities. and look afresh at the role of metrics in any future research excellence framework and consider whether design changes now under consideration as part of the FRAP suggest similar or different conclusions to those reached in 2015. The review was conducted over the Summer, and will be completed mid-September so we await with interest the published outcome.

What lies ahead for research assessment reforms in Europe?

In June 2022, the Council of the European Union gave the green light for a European Agreement on research assessment reforms to go ahead. Plans for this initiative were proposed in a European Commission scoping report in 2021. Under the Agreement, research actors across European member states (including research performing organizations, funders, and national or regional assessment organizations) will be invited to sign up voluntarily and pledge their commitment to translate principles outlined in the report into local assessment reforms. Read the full post here.

Friday 4 March 2022

New Funding of €1.725 Million Positions Ireland to Lead in Open Research

A significant pool of funding has been designated to ramp up Ireland’s progress in implementing an open research ecosystem. This funding marks Ireland’s first national budget aimed at dramatically improving the pathways for sharing research, and building transparent practices into the very fabric of scientific discovery. The funding of €1.725 million from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) has been announced by the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, to support the activities of the National Open Research Forum (NORF) and has been allocated to the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) to distribute to key initiatives identified by the NORF.

Friday 25 February 2022

Altmetrics Explorer now available in MU

Altmetrics are metrics and qualitative data that are complementary to traditional, citation-based metrics. They can include (but are not limited to) peer reviews on Faculty of 1000, citations on Wikipedia and in public policy documents, discussions on research blogs, mainstream media coverage, bookmarks on reference managers like Mendeley, and mentions on social networks such as Twitter. Sourced from the Web, Altmetrics can tell you a lot about how often journal articles and other scholarly outputs like datasets are discussed and used around the world. For that reason, altmetrics have been incorporated into researchers’ websites, institutional repositories, journal websites, and more. Altmetrics Explorer is an intuitive platform that enables you to monitor the online activity surrounding academic research. Browse by author, group or department for your own institution, benchmark against peer organizations, report on the outcomes of outreach activity, and integrate the insights the data provides into evaluation and review processes. To find out how to register for a Altmetrics Explorer account and to find out how to use Altmetrics Explorer to monitor engagement with your research papers, and showcase your influence check out the guide here

Research evaluation should be pragmatic, not a choice between peer review and metrics

Responding to the growing momentum of movements, such as DORA and CoARA, Giovanni Abramo argues for a more nuanced balance between the use o...