The Reformscape user’s guide

Reformscape brings together hundreds of examples of good practice approaches, policies and action plans for fairer hiring, promotion and tenure, and evaluating certain faculty roles. On Reformscape, you can easily search and browse this information to find what works for your institution.

• Visit the Reformscape home page
• Enter your search terms where it says “Enter Search Keywords”
• Filter results using the drop-down menus below by location, topic, disciplines and more
• Click “Submit” to see your results

• To see more information about each result, click the “+” button to the right of the result, or click “Expand All” at the top
• You can also sort the results by year and change the number of results you see on one page at the top of the page
• To change search terms, use the search bar at the top 
• To change filters, use the “Change Options” button to the right

To locate and explore your institution’s profile in Reformscape, use the search function. You can refine your search to find specific information tailored to your institution’s practices and initiatives.

• Visit the Reformscape home page
• Enter your institution’s name or relevant keywords in the search bar labeled “Enter Search Keywords”
• Use the drop-down menus to filter your search result by location, topic, discipline, and more
• Click “Submit”

• Find a result relevant to your institution and click the “+” button to the right of the result to expand the description
• Within the expanded description, find and click on the button labeled with the name of your institution
• This will take you to your institution’s profile page

You may want to share your institution’s profile with colleagues or friends. 

• To do so, copy the URL in the address bar at the top of your browser

As Reformscape continues to grow, profiles from institutions around the world will be continually added and updated.

You can also easily plot and visualize the data from your search results. This way you can easily see what types of responsible research assessment source material relevant to your search results has been included. You can also see what assessment processes were impacted, which disciplines were impacted, and more. 

• Once you have submitted your search result, click “Visualize items” underneath the search bar on the left-hand side

• To see data containing everything in Reformscape, perform a search with no search terms or filters and click “Visualize data,” or navigate directly to https://sfdora.org/reformscape/visualize-data/ 
• To go back to your search results, scroll up to the top of the Visualize Data page and click on the black “Back” button

You can also share your search results and any data you have plotted with your colleagues and friends.

• Copy the URL in the address bar at the top of your browser to save or share the results page with others

If you would like to delve into the raw data for your own analyses, visualizations, or research, the entire Reformscape dataset is available for download. You can also use this data to track changes over time and to investigate the evolving landscape of responsible research assessment practices.

• Perform any search (you can perform a “blank” search by clicking “Submit” without entering any search keywords or filters) 
• Click “Download data” on the right-hand side of the search results: this will download the entire Reformscape dataset, regardless of your search parameters
• The dataset will be saved in plain text, comma separated value (*.CSV) format within a ZIP archive
• CSV files can be opened using spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel or Google sheets

When citing data sourced from Reformscape, please adhere to proper citation practices. Different journals have different practices for citing online databases, but regardless of format please use:

• “Declaration on Research Assessment” as the author
• The “sfdora.org/reformscape” domain instead of “reformscape.org” for increased stability
• Include the version number and the date the data was retrieved, as the Reformscape dataset is subject to updates and changes

Here’s a suggested format:

• Declaration on Research Assessment. (2024). Reformscape data, Version 1.0 – 19 December 2023. Retrieved [date], from https://sfdora.org/reformscape/

Reformscape is a living tool that benefits from contributions made by the worldwide scholarly community. We welcome submissions of publicly available documents related to research reform, including updates from institutions already in the dataset.

• You can provide details for new material here
• Or, click ‘suggest a resource’ on the right-hand side of the search results page
• Provide details for the new material or resource by filling out the form

You can check out the eligibility criteria for source materials to be included here

If you’ve noticed an error or need to report a problem, please email us at reformscape@sfdora.org .

Reformscape was co-created with members of the academic community and developed as part of DORA’s Project TARA. All source materials are publicly available and outline or report activities relevant to responsible research assessment. 

• To learn what data sits behind Reformscape, and how the data are collected and analyzed, read about our methodology here
• Or, click the ‘methodology’ button near the top of the Reformscape home page

Source material for Reformscape has been expertly categorized to showcase a range of reform efforts, and so that you can easily navigate the tool and find information relevant to you. To understand the categories:

• Visit the the glossary at https://sfdora.org/reformscape/glossary/ 
• Or, navigate from the Reformscape home page
  • Click on the ‘FAQs’ button located beneath the search filters
  • Click ‘What data sits behind Reformscape?’
  • Click ‘glossary’

To learn more about how we categorized source material for Reformscape, check out our blog post on categorizing good practice. 

To find out more about Reformscape, how it works, and more in-depth stories of institutions implementing change, check out our blogs.

• Visit the blog page here
• Or, navigate from the Reformscape home page
  • Hover over the ‘News and Resources’ tab on the top of the page
  • Click the ‘Blog’ tab that appears beneath