Post on 10-Jul-2015
Research
evaluation: why
is it relevant to librarians?
Jenny Delasalle
University of Warwick Library
@JennyDelasalle
Q1. Who measures the
performance of researchers?
University rankings
Academic Ranking of World Universities
(Shanghai)
QS World University Rankings
Times Higher Ed World University Rankings
Webometrics
… various others
REF 2014
36 Units of Assessment
Research
Outputs
65%
Impact
20%
Environ-
ment
15%
Funders, eg RCUK
RCUK’s Research Outcomes System (ROS)
An evidence base: reports to Government, the public and other organisations.
publications
Other… (eg) new materials, exhibitions and websites
staff development
collaborations and partnerships,
communication and dissemination activities
summaries of impact.
Institution / Head of Department
recruitment stage / performance review
Looking for:
1. Number of recent (quality) publications
2. Grant income
3. PhD students supervised
4. Things measured by funders & important
rankings
Snowball metrics project
Showcasing their researchers
Researchers for themselves / as
peers
1. What to put on CV/in performance
review documents.
2. What should they do to reach target
audience? To enhance citations?
3. Peer review for journals (and on REF
panels)
4. Editors of journals review the reviewers!
Q2 What data, tools and
measures are there?
Journal title: Short-hand for
quality?
Cachet, because of :
History.
Rigorous peer review & editing.
Attract many submissions & choose the
best.
Circulation/audience.
Invest in a high profile
Good Indexes/discovery tools.
Journal info sources & rankings
Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory
DOAJ
JCR – 2/5 year IF, Immediacy index, Cited half life, Eigenfactor.
SJR & SNIP
Google Scholar’s “Metrics”.
European Reference Index for the Humanities
Harzing.com
Article level measures
Sorting of results by citations.
Display the number of visitors/downloads/
citations per article.
Reviews and comments by readers: on
the journal site/on blogs/SSRN/twitter, etc.
Likes & bookmarks.
Scores or ratings by readers?
News/media coverage.
Librarians as...
Repository/CRIS managers: a source of
info. for others
Guides to Library subscription sources:
citation data, publishing patterns & trends
Expert advisers on alternative metrics and
how they are best used
The future?
An Article level economy.
Availability of Altmetrics will support
interest in other kinds of outputs than
journal articles.
Useful links/further reading
RCUK ROS:
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Researc
hOutcomes/Pages/ros.aspx
REF 2014 : http://www.ref.ac.uk/
Snowball Metrics:
http://www.snowballmetrics.com/
Altmetrics tools:
http://altmetrics.org/tools/