Few UK universities have adopted rules against impact-factor abuse

Gaind, Nisha

doi:10.1038/d41586-018-01874-w

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…If best practices for appraising scientists can be identified, achieving widespread adoption will be a major challenge [ 68 ]. Ultimately, this may depend on institutional values, which might be elicited from the institution’s faculty.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assessment of researchers is necessary for decisions of hiring, promotion, and tenure. A burgeoning number of scientific leaders believe the current system of faculty incentives and rewards is misaligned with the needs of society and disconnected from the evidence about the causes of the reproducibility crisis and suboptimal quality of the scientific publication record. To address this issue, particularly for the clinical and life sciences, we convened a 22-member expert panel workshop in Washington, DC, in January 2017. Twenty-two academic leaders, funders, and scientists participated in the meeting. As background for the meeting, we completed a selective literature review of 22 key documents critiquing the current incentive system. From each document, we extracted how the authors perceived the problems of assessing science and scientists, the unintended consequences of maintaining the status quo for assessing scientists, and details of their proposed solutions. The resulting table was used as a seed for participant discussion. This resulted in six principles for assessing scientists and associated research and policy implications. We hope the content of this paper will serve as a basis for establishing best practices and redesigning the current approaches to assessing scientists by the many players involved in that process.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These principles have yet, however, to achieve widespread adoption among academic institutions. A 2018 survey of 96 research institutions in Great Britain found that 75 had not endorsed the 2013 DORA and had no policy pertaining to the use of research metrics in evaluations ( Gaind, 2018 ). A recent North American survey of promotion and tenure documentation from universities showed 40% of those from research-intensive institutions mentioned the journal impact factor, with over 80% of these being supportive of its use and more than 60% believing it to be an indicator of research quality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ranking of addiction journals in eight widely used impact metrics

Gorman

Huber

2022

JBA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background and aims Journal metrics assess impact upon the research literature, and are now used to assess individual researchers in hiring and promotion decisions. This study compared the ranking of addiction journals according to eight widely used metrics; assessed the correlations between journal rankings; and assessed changes over time in metric scores. Methods Data pertaining to the 2020 scores on eight metrics for 43 journals were obtained and the top 20 ranking in each compared and the correlations between rankings assessed. The Impact Factor was employed to assess changes over time. Results Ignoring the two categorization systems used by some metrics, 31 journals appeared in at least one metric top 20 and 11 in all eight. The top rank in each was occupied by one of three journals. Three-quarters of the correlations between rankings were above 6.0. The number of journals with an Impact Factor rose from 23 in 1997 to 38 in 2020, and the journals added tended to focus on addictions other than alcohol and drugs or have a specific focus. Conclusions and discussion The results indicate a concentration of journals at the top of the metrics and moderate to strong agreement between them, but almost three-quarters of journals appeared in at least one metric. The longitudinal data reflect both a broadening and specialization of the addiction field. The study limitations include exclusion of some journals and metrics.

show abstract

“…This aims to reduce the emphasis on journal impact factors by encouraging the use of a broader range of metrics for assessing the quality of research. Sadly, at least in the UK, there is little evidence of success so far …”

Section: Seven Point Action Plan To Improve Uptake Of Iwmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated weed management (IWM): why are farmers reluctant to adopt non‐chemical alternatives to herbicides?

Moss

2019

Pest Management Science

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Implementation of integrated weed management (IWM) has been poor, with little evidence of concomitant reductions in herbicide use. Non-chemical methods are often adopted as a means of compensating for reduced herbicide efficacy, due to increasing resistance, rather than as alternatives to herbicides. Reluctance to adopt non-chemical methods is not due to a lack of research or technology but to a lack of farmer motivation and action. Justifiably, herbicides are often seen as the easier option -their convenience outweighs the increased complexity, costs and management time associated with non-chemical alternatives. Greater use of non-chemical alternatives to herbicides will only occur if the following seven aspects are addressed: (i) better recognition of the reasons why farmers are reluctant to use non-chemical alternatives; (ii) encouraging farmers to adopt a longer-term approach to weed control; (iii) changing farmers' attitudes to pesticides; (iv) paying more attention to the individual farmer's perspective; (v). greater involvement of economists, social scientists and marketing professionals; (vi) re-evaluating research and extension priorities; and (vii) changing the mindset of funders of research and extension. If 'persuasion' fails to deliver greater implementation of IWM, authorities may resort to greater use of financial and other incentives combined with tougher regulations.

show abstract

Few UK universities have adopted rules against impact-factor abuse

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure

Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure

Ranking of addiction journals in eight widely used impact metrics

Integrated weed management (IWM): why are farmers reluctant to adopt non‐chemical alternatives to herbicides?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About