Courses and resources

Theme:

Education and Research

Category:

Education and Research This activity is for Research active staff and would be particularly useful to Early Career Researchers.

This session will be DELIVERED VIRTUALLY - joining instructions will be provided beforehand.

About this course:

Universities, research teams, and individual researchers all want their research contributions and achievements and capabilities to be recognised fairly, but historically, this has not always been the case.

Proxy measures, often based on metric indicators, are sometimes used to judge, but metrics can also misrepresent and disadvantage researchers, distorting what work they choose to do, or where they choose to publish it, and holding back careers - or even whole disciplines.

Responsible Research Assessment, of which the responsible use of metrics is part, is seen as increasingly important to ensure research contributions are judged fairly on quality, impact, and merit rather than on narrow, misleading proxies.

It is also recognised as a core component of a high-quality research culture.

The University has signed two agreements to help ensure everyone's research contribution is fairly assessed at Exeter.

This interactive learning session will:.

- Introduce the core principles and aims of Responsible Research Assessment.

- Explore awareness and share experiences of the negative impacts of research metrics, especially for judging individual researchers.

- Show how you can demonstrate your research achievements, for example, in promotion or job applications, without relying on metrics alone - and which metrics you should avoid using.

- Show how you can contribute to positive change in the assessment of individuals' research at the University of Exeter and beyond.

Learning outcomes:

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As a result of attending this course, you will be able to: - Increase awareness of the core principles of responsible research assessment, our commitments and understand how research can be assessed unfairly using metrics.

- Understand how an individual's research should be assessed more fairly - whether in relation to promotion and recruitment processes or as part of REF 2029.

- Know how you can present the quality and academic impact of your research and your contribution to it without relying on potentially misleading metrics - and know what to do if you feel your research has been judged unfairly.

- Understand how you can get involved with shifting our culture around fairer research assessment at the University of Exeter.

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Who should attend this course:

Primarily University-based researchers and technician staff who are interested in understanding how research, researchers and the diverse contributions to and outputs of research can be judged - and how, together, we can help the shift towards fairer assessments.

This may particularly benefit new staff to the University of Exeter or those who are less familiar with the University of Exeter's promotional criteria.

If you have accessibility requirements, please contact researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk in advance to discuss further.

Presenter(s):

Prof Rob Anderson, Chair of the University's Responsible Metrics Champions Group and Dr Gareth Cole, Open Research Manager.

What previous participants have said about the course:

- All the speakers / those running it were good (PGR).

- Great - very informative (ECR).

- Good mix of presentation vs interaction - important topic (ECR).

Before the course:

If you have one, remind yourself of your current staff role description.

Please take a moment to reflect on whether, given the types of research that you do, you have any concerns or negative experiences of how others may (mis)judge the value and quality of your research.

Hopefully you will be prepared to share some of these concerns or experiences as part of the workshop.

You may also wish to explore the information and resources available at www.exeter.ac.uk/responsiblemetrics in advance.

The University's main commitments to Responsible Research Assessment arise from our membership ? along with hundreds of other universities and research funders across the world - of the CoARA coalition (https://www.coara.org/). .

Learning provider:

This course is administered by Researcher Development; please contact researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk for more details.

If you register for any of our sessions, it is expected that you will attend.

If you are not able to attend please log in to the `iTrent' online system to remove your name from the relevant activity before it is due to take place.

You will be expected you to attend for the whole session and for ease of administration, attendance registers will be taken at the end of each session.

Should you need to leave a session early or you experience ongoing technical issues, please email ResearcherDevelopment@exeter.ac.uk.

Book your place or add your name to the waiting list