How can we reduce the misuseof metrics in academia?

Talk given at Science Studies Colloquium, Aarhus University, online, 9 February 2022

Abstract. The quantification and oversimplification of academic success is harming scholarly communities in all disciplines. Scholarly metrics, such as the h-index or impact factor, are widely applied in academic tenure and funding decisions, but often inappropriately. This has created publication pressure, leading to a range of adverse effects and even scientific misconduct. To improve the understanding and appropriate use of scholarly metrics, the concept of metrics literacies has been proposed as an integrated set of competencies, dispositions, and knowledge that empower individuals to recognize, interpret, critically assess, and effectively and ethically use scholarly metrics. Attempts to address the lack of metrics literacies in the wider academic community, such as the Leiden Manifesto and The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) or books such as Becoming Metric-Wise: A Bibliometric Guide for Researchers and Measuring Research are published as textual documents. As scholars are already overwhelmed by too much to read, the question arises why not to provide more efficient and effective multimedia open educational resources (OERs) instead of text? The Metrics Literacies project aims to aims to educate researchers and research administrators by developing, testing and disseminating educational videos to reduce the misuse of metrics in academia.