9 The United States differs in that there is no nationwide research assessment system or program, 10 nor is there a single funding body that mandates the use of a particular metric or metrics.
provide examples of several other countries that incorporate metrics in their national research assessment programs, such as Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands 8 however, there have been recent signals of movement to deemphasize the role of metrics in research evaluation. Smith, Crookes, and Crookes note that, in Australia, traditional metrics, including Journal Impact Factors, citation rates, and the h-index, are frequently used for measuring research impact. 6 Examples of the use of metrics in decision-making processes can be found across the globe. Reasons for this include the evaluation of federal or public money spent on higher education and research based on its quality and impact, as well as steps institutions have taken to develop strategies for research in the face of competition with peer institutions for students, staff, and resources. 5ĭespite the growing conversation around altmetrics, researcher use of these resources remains unproven, and traditional metrics have begun playing an increasing role in research decision making, particularly outside North America. Altmetrics are “new metrics based on the social web for analyzing and informing scholarship.” 4 Examples of altmetrics include the number of times a link to a work has been clicked on or the number of likes, shares, and mentions on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. With the dissemination of scholarly work shifting from exclusively print to electronic formats that can be shared and accessed online, a new form of metrics, “altmetrics,” has been an increasing topic of conversation. 2 Traditional metrics mainly focus on how often an article is cited by other scholarly articles examples include the h-index, a measure of an author’s quantity of publications and how many times they have been cited, and the Journal Impact Factor, a measure of how often a journal’s articles are cited. 1 Bibliometrics are “a set of quantitative methods used to measure, track, and analyze print based literature” and are used by individual scholars, institutions, and funding agencies to measure the impact of research and scholarship. Research impact metrics, including traditional bibliometrics, have been one mechanism for assessing the quality of research for more than 60 years. Researchers and their institutions are increasingly called upon by funders, legislators, and other stakeholders to demonstrate their productivity and the subsequent impact of their research, both in the scientific community and in society. To develop tools and services that actually address faculty and researcher needs, librarians must develop a comprehensive understanding of their interests and concerns around metrics. With the end goal of improving our library’s research impact–related services to better support faculty and researchers across campus, this exploratory qualitative analysis offers a more nuanced understanding of the current landscape of opinion around research impact metrics. Participants expressed a desire to be involved in decision making around the use of metrics in evaluation processes.
Participants indicated they understand metrics and use them in a variety of ways, but they have concerns about administrators’ potentially inappropriate use of metrics in assessment. The survey included opportunities for participants to provide free-text responses regarding their use of metrics and concerns they have about the use of metrics for assessment. We present a qualitative analysis of the results of a survey of faculty and researchers at a large Midwestern R1 university around their understanding of and attitudes toward scholarly metrics. Qualitative Analysis of Faculty Opinions on and Perceptions of Research Impact MetricsĬaitlin Bakker, Kristen Cooper, Allison Langham-Putrow, and Jenny McBurney *