Ninth Level Ireland

“Lizzie Gadd argues that any commitment to responsible research assessment as outlined in DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) and other such manifestos needs to include action on global university rankings. Highlighting four fundamental critiques of the way in which journal metrics and university rankings have been deployed in higher education, she proposes universities could unite around the principle of being ‘much more than their rank’ …” (more)

[LSE Impact Blog, 10 May]

“As markets began to usurp other forms of social regulation throughout the 20th century, metrics became increasingly central to the coordination of new spheres of market-mediated relations. More recently, digital metrics have been operationalized to facilitate the platformization of those domains. Platforms use automated scoring systems to rank content and actors across the markets they mediate …” (more)

[Jake Goldenfein, LPE Project, 22 April]

“A university in the United Kingdom is facing criticism over the responsible use of research metrics, after it used information about scientists’ research income and publication records to identify dozens of jobs that are ‘at risk’. Critics say that using metrics in such a decision is inappropriate because they tend to focus on a small part of an academic’s job. They add that the institution at the centre of the row – the University of Liverpool – used a metric based on citations that is designed to evaluate large groups of researchers, rather than individuals …” (more)

[Holly Else, Nature, 25 March]

“Earlier this year, French physician and microbiologist Didier Raoult generated a media uproar over his controversial promotion of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. The researcher has long pointed to his growing list of publications and high number of citations as an indication of his contribution to science, all summarized in his ‘h-index’ …” (more)

[Yves Gingras and Mahdi Khelfaoui, The Conversation, 8 July]

“For the past quarter-century, I have reviewed cases for academic tenure and promotion in many disciplines in many countries. Usually what is required is an evaluation of the candidate’s research record. Teaching and, increasingly, public engagement are also mentioned as factors to weigh …” (more)

[Steve Fuller, University World News, 28 September]

“In this article, published in Ireland’s Yearbook of Education 2017-2018, Professor Deeks discusses the characteristics of world-class universities, how these are measured, the challenges facing universities, their core role and their contribution to the economy and society …” (more)

[Education Matters, 31 August]

“The active use of metrics in everyday research activities suggests academics have accepted them as standards of evaluation, that they are ‘thinking with indicators’. Yet when asked, many academics profess concern about the limitations of evaluative metrics and the extent of their use. Why is there such a discrepancy between principle and practices pertaining to metrics? …” (more)

[Lai Ma, LSE Impact Blog, 15 August]

“A survey of British institutions reveals that few have taken concrete steps to stop the much-criticized misuse of research metrics in the evaluation of academics’ work. The results offer an early insight into global efforts to clamp down on such practices …” (more)

[Nisha Gaind, Nature, 12 February]

“A week or so ago, a list of perverse incentives in academia made rounds. It offers examples like ‘rewarding an increased number of citations’ that – instead of encouraging work of high quality and impact – results in inflated citation lists, an academic tit-for-tat which has become standard practice. Likewise, rewarding a high number of publications doesn’t produce more good science, but merely finer slices of the same science …” (more)

[Sabine Hossenfelder, Backreaction, 22 March]

“I’ve been on Twitter since April 2011 — nearly six years. A few weeks ago, for the first time, something I tweeted broke the thousand-retweets barrier. And I am really unhappy about it. For two reasons. First, it’s not my own content …” (more)

[Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week, 17 March]

“A new initiative to measure the research output of Trinity’s staff, currently in its pilot phase, has raised concerns that it might potentially rank and compare individual academics, already drawing criticism from a trade union. The new initiative, Principal Investigator Quantitative Analytics, is proposing to rank academics based on their research output …” (more)

[Róisín Power and Sinéad Baker, University Times, 1 February]

“Following the recent publishing of the Stern Review of REF 2014, Dr Sergey Popov looks at some of the recommendations contained in the report …” (more)

[QPOL, 22 August]

“Despite some whispers that the research excellence framework (REF) might be scrapped, the government’s higher education Green Paper, published earlier this month, indicates that it will remain – possibly subject to a metrics-based interim ‘refreshment’. There is even a proposal to introduce a version for teaching. That is a pity …” (more)

[Times Higher Education, 19 November]

“A proposed additional assessment of research quality between research excellence frameworks based on metrics such as citations rather than peer review would not be seen as credible, according to one of the authors of a major government-commissioned report on the subject …” (more)

[David Matthews, Times Higher Education, 10 November]

“Trickery by editors to boost their journal impact factor means that the widely used metric ‘has now lost most of its credibility’, according to Research Policy journal. With many editors now engaged in ‘ingenious ways’ of boosting their impact factor, ‘one of the main bastions holding back the growing scourge of research misconduct’ has been ‘breached’, the publication warns in an editorial …” (more)

[David Matthews, Times Higher Education, 5 November]

“If the funding allocated to universities on the basis of the REF is correlated to the grant funding universities already receive, what is the point of the output assessment process? …” (more)

[Jon Clayden, Impact of Social Sciences, 25 August]

“The benefits of any research assessment framework should ideally outweigh the costs and burden incurred by universities and staff. Derek Sayer argues there should be cause for concern now that recent analysis shows the 2014 REF bill was three times as much as the last UK assessment exercise …” (more)

[Impact of Social Sciences, 3 August]

“Metrics play a growing role in managing research. But to understand their limitations, we need to draw on the humanities. Last week, the independent review of metrics in research assessment published its final report The Metric Tide …” (more)

[Cameron Neylon, Guardian, 14 July]

“The current research excellence framework is ‘a bloated boondoggle’ that ‘steals years, and possibly centuries, of staff time that could be put to better use, and includes so many outcome measures that every university can cherry-pick its way to appearing ‘top-ranking’ …” (more)

[Paul Jump, Times Higher Education, 18 June]

“If you work in the sciences, you will be all too aware of the journal impact factor (JIF). The requirement for ‘publications in high impact journals’ has become a staple of job advertisements, and the achievement of this goal is emblazoned across research group websites as evidence of gloriousness …” (more)

[CDBU, 30 April]