Misconceptions and common errors
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Suggestions for better Research Assessment: San Francisco Declaration
An substantial number of institutions and individuals have signed to support the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which is critical of the use of journal impact factors in assessing research. I find the reasoning behind and suggestions for how (not) to do assessments quite interesting, see examples quotes below. A tool is provided, Reformscape,…
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Journal rankings have negative impact
Björn Brembs, Katherine Button, and Marcus Munafò argue and provide facts in their paper “Deep Impact: Unintended consequences of journal rank” Cathy O’Neil analyzed the findings in her blog, interesting reading and another argument that we should not use numerical indicators for qualitative evaluations The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment provides conclusions on how…
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Resist Schoolyard Peer Pressure
Only because other conferences are doing it, you don’t have to – the benefit to your conference and its community matters. A few times I received suggestions for changes in ECRTS motivated by “but the other conferences are doing it”. This sounds to me like schoolyard peer pressure ala “all the other kids have sneakers…
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Don’t try to fix the symptom
Conferences are complex with breathtaking numbers of dependencies. Resolving a tiny symptom, with a possibly easy fix, can cause much bigger issues to bubble up. What was a small issue can turn into much larger one when fixed in isolation. Whenever we see a need for change in a matter, we should have a look…