6: Methods & Metrics
Derive new methods and metrics for evaluating quality and impact that extend beyond traditional print outputs to embrace the
new technologies
Other Information:
Current academic assessment models don't adequately measure the merit of scholars and their work over the full breadth of
their research outputs -- Not only are the products of research activity still firmly rooted in the past, so too are our means
of assessing the impact of those products and of the scholars who produce them. For five decades, the impact of a scholarly
work—an entity that is already narrowly defined, in the sciences as a journal article, and in the humanities as a monograph—has
been judged by counting the number of citations it receives from other scholarly works, or, worse, by attributing worth to
an individual's work based solely on the overall impact factor of the journal in which it happens to be published. We now
live in an age in which other methods of evaluation, including article-level usage metrics, blog comments, discussion on mail
lists, press quotes, and other forms of media, are becoming increasingly important reflections of scholarly and public impact.
Failure to take these aspects into account means not only that the impact and/or quality of a publication is not adequately
measured, but also that the current incentivization and evaluation system for scholars does not relate well to the actual
impact of their activities.
Objective(s):
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