Resource of the Week #111: Evaluating Research—Moving Beyond the Impact Factor

Hello. This week I’m featuring a resource mentioned by editor and trainer Tom Lang. This resource is the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. A main message is to avoid relying on the Journal Impact Factor when evaluating research output.

This declaration arose in San Francisco, California. A group of journal editors and publishers developed it during the 2012 annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. Many researchers, editors, and others have now signed the declaration.

The declaration summarizes deficiencies of the Journal Impact Factor as a way to evaluate research. As noted, this factor was created for another purpose: to help librarians decide which journals to buy.

Then the declaration presents recommendations for assessing research output more validly and completely. Included are recommendations for funding agencies, institutions, publishers, organizations supplying publication metrics, and researchers.

The declaration contains the good observation that journal articles aren’t the only outputs of research. Examples of other outputs include datasets, software, reagents, and “highly trained young scientists”. Such outputs too deserve consideration, it notes.

I encourage you to look at this resource and to consider recommending it to others.

Until the next post—

Barbara