2020 in review: DORA's list of new developments in research assessment | DORA

"From DORA:

• In March, DORA launched a quarterly virtual meeting for public and private funders of research in the Americas, Europe, and Africa to discuss new practices and increase communication for research assessment reform. DORA organized its first complementary meeting in August for research funders in the Asia-Pacific region.
• DORA published a framework for driving institutional change for academic assessment in August based on discussions at a meeting convened by DORA and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 2019. The framework provides four goals for institutions seeking to improve academic assessment: 1) understand obstacles; 2) experiment with different ideas and approaches; 3) create a shared vision; and 4) communicate that vision on campus and externally to other research institutions.
• As another outcome of the meeting DORA co-sponsored with HHMI, DORA began collaborating with Ruth Schmidt, Associate Professor at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology to develop a toolkit of resources to help academic institutions improve their policies and practices. So far, we have created two briefs together:
  • Rethinking Research Assessment: Ideas for Action outlines five common myths about research evaluation to make the case for reform and offers five design principles to help institutions experiment with and develop better research assessment practice.
  • Unintended Cognitive and Systems Biases identifies four infrastructural implications of common cognitive biases and provides strategies to develop new institutional conditions that reduce bias.

• In collaboration with the European University Association and SPARC Europe, DORA developed a digital repository of 10 case studies that examine key elements of institutional change for academic assessment reform, including motivations, the people involved, processes, and timelines for achieving specific goals. The repository is intended to be a useful tool for the scholarly community by providing clarity on how and in which context assessment reform is being developed and identifying potential pathways for change...."