Metrics Literacy: Educating Researchers and Research Support Staff Regarding Scholarly Metrics

The talk introduces the Metrics Literacy project, which aims improve the way in which researchers and research support staff (e.g., research managers, research librarians, science communicators and funding organizations) can be trained to ensure that scholarly metrics are applied and interpreted appropriately. It aims to reduce misuse of indicators, such as the impact factor and h-index, and the application of quantitative measurements in inapt contexts by developing online resources (so-called building blocks), which convey the meaning of various scholarly indicators in an easy-to-understand fashion. Building blocks are targeted at specific audiences (e.g., researchers or funders) and address one of five main questions and four fields of application (i.e., usage metrics, altmetrics, bibliometrics and technometrics) and will be distributed using the Software Carpentry framework. The project intends to improve metrics literacy in academia and inform current scientometric research about the use of scholarly metrics.