Metrics Selection Across the Research Lifecycle
Presenters:
Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski, PhD Vice President, Global Academic Relations, Elsevier and Senior Adjunct Instructor, School of Professional Studies, Northwestern University
Andrea Michalek, MS Vice President of Research Metrics, Product Management and Managing Director of Plum Analytics, Elsevier
Key points from the session. We learned:
- Different researchers have different needs; different metrics throughout research process – input metrics, process metrics, output & outcome metrics – want to understand the societal/economic metric.
- Different levels of metrics – There will never be a silver bullet metric – can’t be too dependent on a single metric – can’t take a metric from one level and try to apply it at another level.
- Metrics that update in real time provide a feedback loop.
- It can take at least 2-5 years from idea to a published peer-reviewed journal article. Due to the pace of scholarly publishing, it takes another 3-5 years from the time the work is published to get to critical mass of citation counts. Why wait 5-10 years for this? Can measure much more real time data – slide share presentations – who downloaded, who interacted – preprints, etc.
- Metrics can show who is reading your article – is it government, industry, academia, etc.
What did you hear at this presentation that surprised you?
Users in different countries select different metrics. Germany is most interested in collaboration metrics. The US is still very traditional with its publications emphasis.
What resources did you discover at this presentation?
SciVal Solutions; PlumX.
What was the most interesting question asked by an audience member, and what was the presenters’ response?
Q: What about team science/interdisciplinary metrics?
A: Universities need to expand their thinking of what counts as scholarly output and the metrics associated with them. There are new schemas in thinking about collaboratorship vs. authorship. Not all collaborators make authorship. How do you measure collaborations? Needs to be more research out there on metrics.
Q: What metrics can I use to measure so that it doesn’t take over my life?
A: Many tools available. Depends on what you need most and what will best fit your institutional needs.
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