Irrational rationality: critique of metrics-based evaluation of researchers and universities | Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir les savoirs communs

heather.morrison's.bookmarks 2021-08-03

Summary:

The unique contribution of this chapter is critique of the underlying belief behind both traditional and alternative metrics-based approaches to assessing research and researchers, that is, the assumption that impact is good and an indicator of quality research and therefore it makes sense to measure impact, with the only questions being whether particular technical measures of impact are accurate or not. For example, if impact is necessarily good, then the retracted study by Wakefield et al. that falsely correlated vaccination with autism is good research by any metric – many academic citations both before and after publication, citations in popular and social media and arguably a factor in the real-world impact of the anti-vaccination movement and the subsequent return of preventable illnesses like measles and a factor in the challenge of fighting COVID through vaccination. An alternative approach is suggested, using the traditional University of Ottawa’s collective agreement with APUO (union of full-time professors) as a means of evaluation that considers many different types of publications and considers quantity of publication in a way that gives evaluators the flexibility to take into account the kind of research and research output.

Link:

https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2021/08/03/irrational-rationality-critique-of-metrics-based-evaluation-of-researchers-and-universities/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » heather's..bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.jif oa.assessment oa.metrics

Date tagged:

08/03/2021, 10:20

Date published:

08/03/2021, 06:20