The Only Substitute for Metrics is Better Metrics - Open Access Archivangelism

The topic of using metrics for research performance assessment in the UK has a rather long history, beginning with the work of Charles Oppenheim. The solution is neither to abjure metrics nor to pick and stick to one unvalidated metric, whether it’s the journal impact factor or the h-index. The solution is to jointly test and validate, field by field, a battery of multiple, diverse metrics (citations, downloads, links, tweets, tags, endogamy/exogamy, hubs/authorities, latency/longevity, co-citations, co-authorships, etc.) against a face-valid criterion (such as peer rankings).