Developing training and guidance to support responsible use of research metrics
Introduction
The University of Manchester’s Our Future vision is to transform our research environment in ways that support open and responsible practices. As an early signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the University is committed to supporting the Wellcome Institute’s 2021 Open Access Policy requirement for demonstrable implementation of responsible metrics principles.
Part of this involves The University of Manchester Library leading a project to advocate for and support the implementation of DORA and other responsible metrics principles throughout the University. A big part of this work will be improving training and guidance on the responsible use of metrics in research assessment. In this post we will introduce you to how we will do this and would welcome your feedback and thoughts.
What can you expect?
We are planning to develop training materials in a modular way, creating and sharing individual resources as soon as they are ready. This will also allow us to get feedback from you on what training and materials you would like.
We are hoping what we create will help increase your awareness of the need for responsible use of research metrics, and the support available to you via the Library.
We would love to hear from researchers so we can collaborate and share knowledge in what we create. This will help us refine ideas and provide what you need in the best format for you. We will share details of how you can get in touch at the end of this post.
The real-world impact of responsible research metrics
The concept of ‘responsible research metrics’ might not be familiar even for researchers familiar with research metrics. At first it might not seem to be particularly significant or potentially problematic. However, irresponsible use of research metrics can negatively affect researcher’s careers and lives. There’s evidence that suggest researchers from minority groups tend to be most affected from inappropriate use of metrics.
To help address this we are aiming to highlight the real-world impact of irresponsible use of research metrics by creating a video interview with an academic colleague who has undertaken research into biases in academia and research publication.
Role-based training & materials
We will be developing resources which are tailored to roles and career stage. For example a junior researcher, an Early Career Researcher or Postgraduate Research Student is likely to have a different level of knowledge than a more established or senior researcher, a department lead, or a lab owner. As well as making materials relevant to what different people are using them for such as those using research metrics in research assessment, recruitment, promotion or for their own career development.
Format of materials
We’re hoping to develop instructional materials for these audiences, available openly online. These are likely to take the form of blog posts like this one. Content of the resources so far plans to focus on the following elements :
- What are research metrics?
- How are these used? (specific to context of role(s))
- How should these be used responsibly?
- What are the consequences of irresponsible use?
We will use feedback and engagement data for these resources to inform future development of resources and whether an interactive online module may be useful.
What next?
We intend to begin work on the video interview we mentioned earlier covering the ‘why’ of research metrics very shortly.
If you have any feedback or thoughts you can get in touch with us via email researchmetrics@manchester.ac.uk.
