Across the world, institutions and funders experience similar challenges in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions. How do we define research quality? What criteria should be included in researcher assessments? While some challenges might be shared, the academic ecosystem can vary from region to region.
Annual report: a recap of DORA activities in 2018
In many ways, 2018 was a groundbreaking year for the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). It marked the fifth anniversary of the declaration’s release, and we were re-invigorated with a newly formed steering committee, chaired by Prof. Stephen Curry, and a community manager, Dr. Anna Hatch, all determined to effect real change in the scholarly community.
You’ve signed DORA, now what?
For the past five years, the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) has been a beacon illuminating the problems due to the excessive attention paid to journal metrics and pointing the way to improvements that can be made by all stakeholders involved in evaluating academic research and scholarship. Researchers, funders, universities and research institutes, publishers and metrics providers have all committed – at a minimum – not to “use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.”
2018 in review—the top 10 advances in research assessment
As 2018 comes to a close, we reflect on the past year and the progress the community made to improve the way we evaluate research and researchers.
CRediT where credit is due
All authors make unique contributions to a piece of work that cannot be articulated by looking at an author list. For the increasingly rare single-author publication, it is clear who contributed what to the article. However, multi-author publications are common and, in this case, it is not so clear who did what.
Identifying obstacles in the journey to tenure
In academia, the bar for success continues to get higher for early-career researchers who are looking for faculty positions and grant funding. On November 4, we sat down with Prof. Christopher Jackson from Imperial College London to hear his perspective on the incentive structure in academia and what we can do better.
Incorporating open access activities as explicit criteria in researcher assessment
Implicit evaluation criteria can heavily influence researchers’ decisions. But as a global academic community, we can reconcile our priorities with how we evaluate researchers by modifying the standards we use in research evaluations.
#sfDORA Interviews: Research Assessment and Academia
To mark DORA’s fifth anniversary, we are celebrating with an interview series that focuses on implementing good practices in research assessment. We are pleased to announce our fourth interview is with Prof. Christopher Jackson, Equinor Professor of Basin Analysis, Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial College. He will answer questions about how researchers can help change the culture of research assessment. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the interview.
DORA expands reach with appointment of new international advisory group
We are pleased to announce the formation of an international advisory board to provide strategic guidance to DORA and to further our vision of advancing practical and robust approaches to research assessment globally and across all disciplines.
DORA announces slides for its supporters!
We are pleased to share three slide-decks with the DORA community! Science is communicated in part through presentations, and we hope that our supporters will feel empowered to initiate conversations about research assessment whenever they give a talk. We have three options available for download.