Responsible Use Of Publication Metrics


 

Aston University is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment and as such, supports the following recommendations:


•    the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, in funding, appointment, and promotion considerations;
 
•    the need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published; and
 
•    the need to capitalise on the opportunities provided by online publication (such as relaxing unnecessary limits on the number of words, figures, and references in articles, and exploring new indicators of significance and impact).


In accordance with this Aston has adopted the below principles in operationalising the Policy for the Responsible Use of Metrics:


•    Substantive peer review remains the principal means of assessing the quality of individual research outputs.
 
•    The University will use a basket of metrics, derived from the Elsevier online tool Scival, to be used, where appropriate, at the moderation stage of the Aston Peer-Review Process for Research Outputs in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, the College of Health and Life Sciences and Aston Business School. The basket of metrics will not be used at all in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, or in Aston Law School because the data and coverage in these disciplinary areas are not of sufficiently high quality to justify its use.
The basket of metrics includes:


•    Citation Count: the number of citations received during a specific time window: 2 years for disciplines in EPS and HLS; 5 years for ABS.
 
•    Field-weighted citation impact (FWCI): FWCI is a value assigned to a given paper based on the ‘expected citations’ received by papers in the field between two and four years after publication. A score of ‘one’ represents the median number of citations for the field.


These metrics account for field-specific publication patterns while recognising that the expertise and experience of Aston academics can assess the relationship between raw citation counts and the quality of individual outputs. This understanding is vitally important for those outputs which fall beyond the traditional field boundaries employed by metrics such as FWCI. It is also important that those involved in the moderation process consider the broader context in which the author is working.


Person-based metrics (eg H-indices), journal classifications (eg CABS) and Journal Impact Factors should not be used to inform the peer review process. The basket of publication metrics should not be used for monographs, book chapters, non-English language outputs, patents, software, datasets and databases.