Reformscape frequently asked questions (FAQs)

DORA Reformscape is a tool for the academic community. It brings together ideas and inspiration for how to bring responsible academic career assessment for hiring, promotion and tenure into your institution, and allows you to share what you’re doing with others.

There are better ways of assessing researchers that don’t rely on proxy measures, narrow criteria and bibliometrics – but change is always daunting. It’s much easier to take the next step on your own reform journey when you can quickly and easily discover what’s already driving change in other places. Reformscape provides you with these concrete examples. 

Reformscape is not a compliance tool. DORA knows that there are many different pathways to reform and we hope this tool helps the scholarly community learn from, share and celebrate the progress made so far, inspiring others on their own journeys.

Explore Reformscape

No matter what stage of reform you’re at – whether you’re just beginning your journey or already have a path planned out, you can use Reformscape to discover something new. Check out what Reformscape can be used for here.  

While Reformscape is usable on a mobile phone, you’ll have the best tool experience using a desktop or laptop. You can use Reformscape to: 

• View graphs and visualizations showing trends in responsible academic career assessment over time and by country.
• Search and filter examples by location, career stage, discipline and date.  
• Read institutional profiles describing detailed summaries of their actions and progress. 
• Access source materials to dig into the details of announcements, action plans, policies and published practices. 
• Read expertly curated insights and commentary by the DORA team drawn straight from the data.
• Share institutional profiles and insights with your networks to spark conversations and celebrate progress. 

Keep up to date with new materials added over time by using meta tags as well as the latest insights shared by the DORA team.

At the moment, Reformscape covers examples of research-performing institutions implementing new ways of assessing for hiring, promotion and tenure and for faculty roles at the assistant, associate and full professor levels. Find out more about each type of source material and category in our glossary. 

While the tool captures a diverse range of how assessment reform is put into action, the first version of the tool is deliberately narrow in scope. Our intention is to expand Reformscape to include:

• More faculty roles including early career researchers and postdocs.
• Other assessment practices such as funding decisions, institution-level and regional-level evaluations.
• Other organizations such as funders and publishers.  

This is the start for us too. We want the tool to grow and become even more useful as its use spreads throughout the global research community. Get in touch at reformscape@sfdora.org to tell us what it should include next.

Data is manually identified, analyzed, and added to Reformscape. Read our methodology to learn about the criteria used to determine whether source material is added to the tool.  

We are always on the lookout for new source materials and examples to add to Reformscape relating to innovative hiring, promotion and tenure assessment processes. If you have suggestions about source materials that you think would be suitable for inclusion, please get in touch at reformscape@sfdora.org.

We want to support a community of learning and an important part of this is encouraging institutions and organizations to openly share what they’re working on or what they’ve done. Because there is no one-size-fits all when it comes to reforming assessment practices, it’s important for as many of the academic community as possible to share their journeys so we can learn from one another as well as celebrate progress.

DORA signatories often tell us they struggle to demonstrate the progress they make towards reform. Requiring only web-accessible, publicly available information about what you’re doing, Reformscape is a quick and easy way of demonstrating that you’re making change. 

And while the community can do their own searching, the value Reformscape adds is that it brings together publicly available information alongside the expertise and subject matter know-how of the DORA team. We have a familiarity with the materials and landscape as well as direct connections with the community, providing insights and context that is not possible anywhere else. 

We never intended Reformscape to have all the answers. It will be added to and expanded on over time, so keep coming back to it to find new examples, insights and trends. You can also find more examples of institutions implementing change, ideas and inspiration in our case studies and resource library.

Requiring only web-accessible, publicly available information about what you’re doing to transform research assessment, Reformscape is the easiest and fastest way of demonstrating that you’re making change.

Check the criteria for inclusion or exclusion in our methodology. The current version of the tool only covers examples of research-performing institutions implementing new ways of assessing for hiring, promotion and tenure and for faculty roles at the assistant, associate and full professor levels. 

Want to add your own journey or think an eligible example is missing? Use our “Suggest a resource” form or get in touch at reformscape@sfdora.org.

Reformscape represents a diversity of institutions, but we recognise that this is currently skewed towards Europe. As we developed Reformscape, we were limited by our existing knowledge and connections which are predominantly in and around Europe and the global North. We know this is a gap and will work with the community to grow the tool to make it more globally representative. 

DORA is always on the search for new partners and interested communities around the world. We especially want to hear from those who have eligible examples from Africa, Asia, and South America. Tell us by getting in touch at reformscape@sfdora.org.

Yes! Help us spread the word about Reformscape by sharing it with friends and colleagues. If you would like to promote it within your networks, check out our pack with helpful text, images, and ideas you can use. On social media use #Reformscape and tag @DORAssessment on most social media platforms. Find your favorite platform on of our list of social media sites.

Led by the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), the AGORRA project brings together a group of specialists and practitioners to monitor ongoing developments, gather data, and synthesize evidence for use by others around responsible research assessment.  

Both Reformscape and AGORRA aim to support the implementation, sharing, and scaling of ideas and solutions for responsible academic assessment. While Reformscape collates and shares ideas at the institution-level, AGORRA is taking a funder and country-level perspective. Therefore, we see the projects complementing one another rather than overlapping.

AGORRA also has an emphasis on facilitating a culture of experimenting among those interested in changing how they evaluate researchers, while Reformscape’s main aim is to make it quicker for individuals to find, explore, and learn from examples of good practice.  

To help keep both projects as useful as possible, RoRI is consulting us on their AGORRA project.

Our case studies and resource library contain more examples of institutions implementing change, ideas and inspiration. You can also read our blog series addressing common concerns and challenges when working towards responsible assessment practices.