Introductory course on responsible research assessment, just published by #SFDORA
https://sfdora.org/courses/introductory-course-to-responsible-research-assessment/

The free and self-paced course "aims to empower anyone to challenge existing assumptions around research quality and impact, by introducing them to the concept of responsible research assessment, its foundational principles, and how RRA aims to improve evaluation practices."

#REF2029 #ResearchAssessment

Bogota Manifesto:
Towards an Open, Democratic and Socially Relevant Science in Latin America and the Caribbean
https://sfdora.org/2025/12/19/bogota-manifesto/

Three strategic pillars 👇

One of 11 guiding principles:

Critical #pedagogy: Foster training and collective reflection on #OpenScience and responsible assessment as transformative practices

#SFDORA #ResearchAssessment #REF2029

How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing

There’s a short article on arXiv with the title How to Fight Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences: Joint Recommendations of the IMU and the ICIAM which is well worth reading. The abstract is not useful but the prelude reads:

Prelude. In November 2023, Clarivate announced that it had excluded the entire field of mathematics from the latest edition of its influential list of ‘highly cited researchers’. This prompted the IMU and the ICIAM to conduct a more thorough investigation into the problem of fraudulent publishing in the mathematical sciences (see [1]). Understanding the problem is one thing; finding a way out and regaining control is another. With the recommendations given below, we would like to start the discussion on how, as a global community, we can achieve this. We are all concerned. It affects the very core of the science we love so much. I.A.

arXiv:2509.09877

The paper correctly identifies predatory journals and citation cartels as two consequences of the effort to quantify and rank the quality of research through scientific ‘performance indicators’, in the form of bibliometric measures and suggests some possible remedies.

Many of the recommendations are already included in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (SFDORA). Many also apply beyond the mathematical sciences (which is why I dropped the Mathematical Sciences bit in the title of the paper from the title of this blog post) and it’s not a long paper so I suggest you read it.

In my view one of the most important steps to take is to ditch the reliance on such companies as Scopus and Clarivate, who have deliberately constructed a system that is so easy to game. All higher education institutes should follow the examples of the Sorbonne University in Paris and, more recently, Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The academic publishing racket is inherently fraudulent. Too many universities, and indeed researchers employed by them, are willing participants in the system.

#arXiv250909877 #CitationCartels #Clarivate #DORA #PredatoryPublishers #SanFranciscoDeclarationOnResearchAssessment #SCOPUS #SFDORA

Happy birthday #DORA! That is, happy birthday to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which turns 10 years old today. (Not to be confused with Dora the Explorer, who is 22, despite her childlike appearance.)

I'm excited to be joining a webinar, "DORA at 10: Looking back and looking forward," featuring @ginnybarbour and @StephenCurry

Find out more about DORA: https://sfdora.org/dora-10th-anniversary-events/

#SFDORA #ResearchAssessment #ScholarlyCommunications

From #sfDORA on the birdsite: New! Read
@QueenSaikia_’s summary of the community call to introduce two new Project TARA tools created by
@ruthkschmidt to support responsible #ResearchAssessment:
🌟Debiasing Committee Composition
🌟Building Blocks for Impact

https://sfdora.org/2023/03/02/introducing-two-new-tools-to-support-responsible-research-assessment-debiasing-committee-composition-and-building-blocks-for-impact/

#research #assessment #evaluation #academia