Metrics Toolkit launches to help academics better understand research impact - January 30, 2018

 Metrics Toolkit, a resource built to help researchers and evaluators navigate the ever-changing research metrics landscape, launched on January 30, 2018..

The Metrics Toolkit includes 27 expert-written, time-saving summaries for the most popular research metrics including the Journal Impact Factor and Altmetric Attention Score.

Even better, the Metrics Toolkit includes an app that can recommend discipline-specific metrics to satisfy your specific use cases.

Best of all, the Metrics Toolkit carries a CC-BY license so you can reuse its content as you wish!

VISIT THE TOOLKIT

Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries (SPIRL)

Stanford University Libraries announces the Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries - SPIRL, an award that is intended to recognize and celebrate individual research libraries for sustained and significant innovation in any operational area.  Nominations with documentation may be made by institutions or individuals and are due by 5:00pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday 15 January 2013.  A full explanation of the intent and process for SPIRL may be found at http://library.stanford.edu/prizes/spirl It is expected that the first prize(s) will be announced in mid- to late-February 2013.

Judging criteria

Awards will be based on a single programmatic or project undertaking and/or a sustained culture and profile of encouraging effective and sustainable innovation; the effect of such efforts must have measurable impact on the library's own clientele as well as the potential for influencing the practices and/or standards of research librarianship generally. The notion of “innovation” need not be inherently about information technology, though it might be assumed that such technology will be employed as appropriate to achieve the programmatic ends of the institution. Nominations will be judged on the following:

• Evidence of the effects of the program(s) on the readers/users or staff of the nominated library;
• Nature of the innovation;
• Potential contribution(s) of the program to research and/or service practices in other domains outside of research librarianship;
• Sustainability of the program;
• Potential for replication or adaptation by other research libraries.

Research and Productivity Measurement Webcast - SLA D.C. Chapter - October 27, 2010

Impact and Productivity Measurements in a Changing Research Environment
Hosted by Elsevier in conjunction with SLA Washington D.C. Chapter
The Library of Congress, Mumford Room - October 27, 2010

"Research productivity had been measured through citation metrics in much the same way for many years now. But in recent years, SNIP, SJR and h-Index have joined Impact Factor as leading performance metric providing new insights into research at the forefront of discovery.

In today's rapidly changing, global and collaborative research environment, the research community is looking for new methodologies to assess research that better reflect the complexities of today's research. Today's research assessments need to encompass many performance metrics and consider measurements that do not easily lend themselves to analytics such as patents, products, business initiatives and awards.

"Impact and Productivity Measurements in a Changing Research Environment" furthers this dialog. Watch the presentations and Q&A from a day of learning and discussion with the leaders of research & productivity measurements in the scholarly community, held on October 27th, in Washington, DC, USA."

National Science Foundation to Mandate Data Management Plans

Scientists Seeking NSF Funding Will Soon Be Required to Submit Data Management Plans
Government-wide emphasis on community access to data supports substantive push toward more open sharing of research data

May 10, 2010

During the May 5^th meeting of the National Science Board, National Science Foundation (NSF) officials announced a change in the implementation of the existing policy on sharing research data. In particular, on or around October, 2010, NSF is planning to require that all proposals include a data management plan in the form of a two-page supplementary document. The research community will be informed of the specifics of the anticipated changes and the agency's expectations for the data management plans. [more]

We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research - CHE june 13, 2010

June 13, 2010
We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research

Michael Glenwood for The Chronicle

Michael Glenwood for The Chronicle
By Mark Bauerlein, Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Wayne Grody, Bill McKelvey, and Stanley W. Trimble
Everybody agrees that scientific research is indispensable to the nation's health, prosperity, and security. In the many discussions of the value of research, however, one rarely hears any mention of how much publication of the results is best. Indeed, for all the regrets one hears in these hard times of research suffering from financing problems, we shouldn't forget the fact that the last few decades have seen astounding growth in the sheer output of research findings and conclusions. Just consider the raw increase in the number of journals. Using Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Michael Mabe shows that the number of "refereed academic/scholarly" publications grows at a rate of 3.26 percent per year (i.e., doubles about every 20 years). The main cause: the growth in the number of researchers.
Source: We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research