Courses and resources

Theme:

Education and Research

Category:

Education and Research This activity is for Research active staff and would be particularly useful to Early Career Researchers.

This session will be DELIVERED VIRTUALLY - joining instructions will be provided beforehand.

About this course:

Universities, research teams, and individual researchers all want their research contributions and achievements and capabilities to be recognised fairly.

Increasingly `metrics' - quantitative indicators, like journal impact factors or university rankings - have become the go-to proxies for assessing research quality and scientific contributions.

But metrics can also misrepresent and disadvantage researchers, distorting the work they choose to do, or where they choose to publish it, and holding back careers - or even whole disciplines.

The Responsible Metrics movement, furthered by collaborative agreements such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment and the Leiden Manifesto, have tried to reverse this trend - aiming to ensure metrics are used in context, and alongside more qualitative and peer-assessed judgements of research and researchers.

This interactive learning session will:.

- Introduce the core principles and aims of Responsible Metrics.

- Explore awareness and share experiences of the negative impacts of research metrics, especially for judging individual researchers.

- Show how you can demonstrate your research achievements without relying on metrics alone - and which metrics you should avoid using.

- Show how you can contribute to positive change in individual research assessment at the University of Exeter and beyond.

Learning outcomes:

.

As a result of attending this course, you will be able to: - Be aware of the core principles of the responsible metrics movement and understand how research can be assessed unfairly using metrics.

- Understand how an individual's research can be assessed more fairly - especially in relation to promotion and recruitment processes.

- Know how you can present the quality and academic impact of your research without relying on potentially misleading metrics.

- Understand how you can get involved with shifting our culture around fairer research assessment at the University of Exeter.

Who should attend this course:

This activity is for Research active staff and would be particularly useful to Early Career Researchers.

Primarily university-based researchers, postgraduate research students and technician staff who are interested in understanding how research and researchers are judged - and how, together, we can help the shift towards fairer assessments.

Professional services colleagues are also warmly welcomed to join.

Presenter(s):

Prof Rob Anderson, Chair of the University's Responsible Metrics Champions Group and Dr Jo Garrett (Research Fellow, and Responsible Metrics Champion for the Centre for Environment and Human Health).

Before the course:

If you have one, remind yourself of your current staff profile.

Please take a moment to reflect on whether, given the types of research that you do, you have any concerns or negative experiences of how others may (mis)judge the value and quality of your research.

Hopefully you will be prepared to share some of these concerns or experiences as part of the workshop.

You may also wish to watch our animations (Please take a moment to reflect on whether, given the types of research that you do, you have any concerns or negative experiences of how others may (mis)judge the value and quality of your research.

Hopefully you will be prepared to share some of these concerns or experiences as part of the workshop.

You may also wish to watch our animations (see below) and read our blog article (see below).

Please take a moment to reflect on whether, given the types of research that you do, you have any concerns or negative experiences of how others may (mis)judge the value and quality of your research.

Hopefully you will be prepared to share some of these concerns or experiences as part of the workshop.

Animations (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/understandresponsiblemetrics/). Blog article (https://researchandinnovation.co.uk/a-journals-impact-factor-tells-me-how-good-someones-research-is-right/). .

A joining link will be provided beforehand.

Further information about our work to support the responsible use of metrics at Exeter can be found http://www.exeter.ac.uk/responsiblemetrics.

Learning provider:

This course is administered by Researcher Development; please contact researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk for more details.

If you register for any of our sessions, it is expected that you will attend.

If you are not able to attend please log in to the `iTrent' online system to remove your name from the relevant activity before it is due to take place.

You will be expected you to attend for the whole session and for ease of administration, attendance registers will be taken at the end of each session.

Should you need to leave a session early or you experience ongoing technical issues, please email ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Book your place or add your name to the waiting list