How Evaluative Informetrics Relates to Scientific, Socio-Historical, Political, Ethical and Personal Values

Henk F Moed

doi:10.29024/sar.18

Abstract

Policy highlights:If evaluation is defined as “a systematic determination of a subject’s merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards”, there is no evaluation without an evaluative framework specifying these criteria and standards.On the other hand, evaluative informetrics itself, defined as the study of evaluative aspects of science and scholarship using citation analysis, altmetrics and other indicators, does not evaluate.However, informetric indicators are often used in research assessment processes. To obtain a better understanding of their role, the links between evaluative informetrics and ‘values’ are investigated, and a series of practical guidelines are proposed.Informetricians should maintain in their evaluative informetric studies a neutral position toward the policy issues addressed and the criteria specified in an evaluative framework.As professional experts, informetricians’ competence lies primarily in the development and application of analytical models within the context of a given evaluative framework.Informetric researchers could propose that evaluators and policy makers incorporate fundamental scientific values such as openness and adopting a critical attitude in assessment processes.Informetricians could also promote and participate in an overall discussion within the academic community and the research policy domain about the objectives and criteria in research assessment processes and the role of informetric tools therein.Evaluative informetrics is defined as the study of evaluative aspects of science and scholarship using informetric data and methodologies, such as citation analysis and altmetrics. Following the main lines of an article by the Dutch philosopher O.D. Duintjer, nine interfaces are distinguished between quantitative science studies, especially evaluative informetrics, and the domain of values, including scientific, socio-historical, political, ethical and personal norms and objectives. Special attention is given to the “principle of value neutrality” at the meta-level of methodological rules guiding scientific inquiry and to the crucial, independent role of evaluative frameworks in research evaluation. The implications of the various relationships between science and values for research practices in evaluative informetrics and for its application in research assessment are considered.

Highlights

Citation analysis and related tools from evaluative informetrics and its applications in research assessment deal in many ways with values
This concluding section aims to draw conclusions from Duintjer’s framework and notions outlined above for the values and limits of the use of informetric methods in the evaluation of scientific-scholarly research. It proposes a series of practical guidelines that may guide practitioners in evaluative informetrics in reflecting upon these values and limits and in defining their role both as researchers in quantitative science studies and as consultants in actual assessment processes
A first series of guidelines relates to evaluative informetrics as a research activity and emerges from the principle of value neutrality as a methodological requirement outlined above

Summary

Introduction

Citation analysis and related tools from evaluative informetrics and its applications in research assessment deal in many ways with values. The following example may clarify the difference between citation impact indicators as a research tool in quantitative science studies and as an assessment tool in research evaluation. The Sociology Group (n.d.) introduces the notion of value neutrality as follows: “The concept of value-neutrality was proposed by Max Weber It refers to the duty and responsibility of the social researcher to overcome his personal biases while conducting any research. The interfaces presented are interpreted in terms of the value configuration underlying the field of quantitative science studies, especially evaluative informetrics. In this way, the current contribution explains

Values behind selective viewpoints and core concepts of scientific theories

Conclusions