As part of DORA’s effort to increase communication about innovative policies and practices for assessing research, we expanded the funder discussion series by hosting our first virtual meeting for the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
The intersections between DORA, open scholarship, and equity
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), published in May 2013, does not mention the term ‘open scholarship.’ And yet DORA and open scholarship are becoming increasingly entwined. DORA’s ambition is to improve research evaluation practices but the practicalities of implementation make it impossible to separate the evaluation of research from questions about who and what research is for, who gets to be involved, and how it should best be carried out, all of which have to take account of the power dynamics that shape the scholarly landscape.
Academic research culture influences learned behaviors in graduate students
For the past eight years the DORA has advocated that research institutions reevaluate their research assessment practices for recruitment, promotion, and funding decisions. To inform the evaluation of scientific productivity, DORA encourages the use of explicit criteria beyond popular bibliometrics like the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) or H-index. These criteria include a range of output measures, such as the generation of new software and datasets, research impact on a field, transparency, training early-career researchers, and influence on policy.
DORA Community Call: Recognizing multilingual scholarly outputs in academic assessment
Please join us for our next community call Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 9:00 - 10:00 AM Eastern (3:00 PM CEST) for a discussion about recognizing and rewarding multilingual scholarly outputs in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions.
Ideas for responsible research assessment in the Asia-Pacific region
Discussions about research integrity are prompting a reevaluation of research culture, including academic assessment. To understand the opportunities and barriers to improve academic assessment in the Asia-Pacific region, DORA hosted its first webinar in collaboration with the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) on Thursday, July 2, 2020. Panelists included Michael Barber, Australian Academy of Science; Yukiko Gotoh, The University of Tokyo; Xiaoxuan Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Donna McRostie, University of Melbourne; and Justin Zobel, University of Melbourne.
DORA Funder Discussion: Updates from Research England and the Open Research Funders Group
Communication is an important mechanism to increase the uptake of responsible research assessment practices at universities and funding agencies. To help, DORA brings together public and private research funders for a virtual meeting each quarter to discuss new policies, practices, and pilot experiments for assessing research. On Thursday, June 25, 2020, Claire Fraser, senior policy advisor at Research England and Greg Tananbaum, director of the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG), provided updates on their latest efforts to improve research assessment.
Faculty are concerned about research assessment in the wake of COVID-19
The emergence of the corona virus this winter led to the unprecedented global stoppage of academic research. To identify faculty challenges in the wake of the pandemic, DORA co-sponsored a webinar with Rescuing Biomedical Research (RBR) on May 7, 2020.
Annual report: a recap of activities of the San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA) in 2019
Over the past year, it has become apparent that the declaration represents just one part of DORA’s portfolio of activities. In 2019, DORA added resources and examples of good practice to the web page, organized sessions at academic conferences, published perspective pieces, hosted virtual events, and co-sponsored our first meeting with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
DORA Community Call: Strategies for responsible research assessment in the Asia-Pacific region
DORA is pleased to announce its first webinar for the Asia-Pacific region with the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group on Thursday, July 2 at 12:00 PM Australian Eastern Standard Time (10:00 AM China Standard Time). The webinar is open to all and will provide an update from DORA and offer ideas about strategies to implement responsible research assessment practices.
DORA seeks nominations for the Advisory Board from North and South America
DORA seeks nominations and self-nominations from North and South America to fill two open positions on our international Advisory Board.