Responsible Use of Metrics
Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries are committed to the responsible use of metrics, and have developed a statement to provide guidance regarding using bibliometric data carefully and responsibly.
This statement includes a commitment that:
- Bibliometric indicators should be used to support, not replace, qualitative expert assessment by peers.
- Journal Impact Factors should not be used as a measure of the quality of individual research articles.
- When assessing research performance, different aspects of research, the field of study (including if the field is emerging, or involving EDIA research) and also the variations across disciplines should be considered.
- When evaluating research performance, all relevant research outputs (such as creative works, inventions, monographs, datasets, software, community research, and as well as publications) and other types of contributions, should be considered.
This statement was drafted in support of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) project, which hinges on two key principles:
- being explicit about the criteria used to reach hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions, clearly highlighting, especially for early-stage investigators, that the scientific content of a paper is much more important than publication metrics
- for the purposes of research assessment, considering the value and impact of all research outputs (including datasets and software) in addition to research publications, and considering a broad range of impact measures including qualitative indicators of research impact, such as influence on policy and practice.
Additional declarations on the responsible use of metrics include:
Creative Commons License
This guide has been created by the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License unless otherwise marked.
