"Responsible metrics [is] a way of framing appropriate uses of quantitative indicators in the governance, management and assessment of research." 'The Metric Tide', 2015
The concept of responsible metrics stems from attempts to prevent the mis-use of research metrics, leading to incorrect inferences or undesirable consequences. The landscape has largely moved on to address responsible assessment, looking at more holistic behaviours around the application of metrics for research assessment. However, the original principles of responsible metrics still apply to our everyday use of research metrics for insight, monitoring and strategy.
The University is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment [DORA]. As an institution this means we:
For researchers and leads, in addition to the above, DORA also stipulates that we:
That we are using metrics that are appropriate for the entity and use case. We can do this by acknowledging weaknesses of specific metrics and the context of the query into account, using document-level metrics for documents and author-level metrics for authors, and so forth.
We triangulate metrics by using multiple measures or indicators.
Where they align, this increases trust in the result. Where they do not align then this should prompt further questioning.
We give those being evaluated/measured the chance to ensure that their information is as up to date as possible.
For example, asking staff to ensure Scopus profiles are up to date before reports are drawn from SciVal.
Metrics alone should not be used for management decisions.
Expert opinion and peer review/ qualitative information should be consulted alongside any metrics. Seeking context to metrics may alter their relevance.