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/