Social Science Space

Academics are required to not only find effective ways to communicate their research, but also to increasingly measure and quantify its quality, impact and reach. In Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know, Rick Anderson puts us in the picture. And in Measuring Research: What Everyone Needs to Know, Cassidy Sugimoto and Vincent Lariviere critically assess over 20 tools currently available for evaluating the quality of research.

To end his trilogy of articles on the research metric system (and Google Scholar in particular), Louis Coiffait explores what improvements could be made.

The active use of metrics in everyday research activities suggests academics have accepted them as standards of evaluation. Yet when asked, many academics profess concern about the limitations of evaluative metrics and the extent of their use. Why is there such a discrepancy between principle and practices?

In Metric Power, David Beer examines the intensifying role that metrics play in our everyday lives, from healthcare provision to our interactions with friends and family, within the context of the so-termed data revolution. This is a book that illustrates our growing implication in, and arguable acquiescence to, an increasingly quantified world, but, Thomas Christie Williams asks, where do we locate resistance?

A culture of bad science can evolve as a result of institutional incentives that prioritize simple quantitative metrics as measures of success, argues Paul Smaldino. But, he adds, not all is lost as new initiatives such as open data and replication are making a positive difference.

As governments seek practical metrics for determining if their research funding is money wisely spent, the quest for ‘impact’ takes on great importance. Drawing from the Australian experience, Stephen Taylor addresses several key measurement principles.

Sociologist Eric Giannella argues the uncertainty of science makes intuition and judgement essential, and yet the effect of metrics is to reduce the role of judgment.