Measure Your Research Impact: HuMetricsHSS

Humane Metrics in the Humanities and Social Sciences

This model shifts focus from “prestige” and strictly qualitative metrics to value-based ones.  HuMetricsHSS invites faculty (both on individual level and committee level) to consider academic work more holistically, and measure impact along value-based lines.  The framework guides evaluations relevant to:

• Tenure and promotion process
• Setting annual goals
• Hiring new faculty
• Decision-making about what kinds of digital projects to take on
• Decision-making about what kinds of collections to develop
• Decision-making about what kinds of projects to publish

"Live Your Values. Transform the Academy."

HuMetricsHSS website.

"Values in Action"

A blog maintained by HuMetricsHSS, with contributions from team members, testimonials, announcements on HuMetricsHSS events, and much more.

"Press and Publications"

Here you will find additional resources on HuMetricsHSS: publications by the HuMetricsHSS team, news stories, journal articles, and blog posts.

"Walking the Talk: Toward a Values-Aligned Academy"

"'Walking the Talk: Toward a Values-Aligned Academy' is the culmination of 18 months of research interviews across the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA). Conducted by the HuMetricsHSS Initiative as an extension of their previous work on values-enacted scholarly practice, the interviews focused on current systems of evaluation within BTAA institutions, the potential problems and inequalities of those processes, the kinds of scholarly work that could be better recognized and rewarded, and the contexts and pressures evaluators are under, including, as the process progressed, the onset and ongoing conditions of COVID-19. The interviews focused primarily on the reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) process. Interviewees outlined a number of issues to be addressed, including toxicity in evaluation, scholars' increased alienation from the work they are passionate about, and a high-level virtue-signaling of values by institutions without the infrastructure or resources to support the enactment of those values. Based on these conversations, this white paper offers a set of recommendations for making wide-scale change to address systematic injustice, erasure, and devaluation of academic labor in order to strengthen the positive public impact of scholarship."

Source: https://humetricshss.org/our-work/values/ 

"Workshops"

HuMetricsHSS offers workshops to guide participants to reflect on their core values and identify tools and indicators to transform their work.  On this page you can learn about workshops offered at other institutions, with a link to presentations that members have given at conferences.  This page also contains a link to their Workshop Guide, a complement to the Workshop Kit linked below.

"Workshop Kit"

This page links to a workshop kit that empowers you to introduce the model within your own institution.  This includes a workshop guide, workshop exercises, and sorting cards.

15 Key HuMetricsHSS Principles

• Universities are shaped by values in principle, but those values often do not filter down to processes.
• If we don’t measure what we value, we will only value what we can measure.
• Values—positive and negative—are enacted all the time, often without intention or understanding.
• Values are often in competition with one another. Taking a values-enacted approach is about engaging with intention, deliberation, and nuance, not perfection.
• It’s possible to bring a values-enacted approach to multiple forms and contexts of work.
• All work done by academics is scholarly work.
• Research, teaching, and service can be considered as cumulative, complementary, and interlinked, rather than isolated and competitive categories.
• Excellence is an ill-defined principle and yet often a proxy to determine the value of academic work.
• Excellent or quality scholarship can be defined by the ways it clearly fulfills a stated and agreed-upon set of guiding values.
• There is no such thing as a “solitary scholar;” all academic labor relies on other, often hidden, academic labor.
• The changing landscape of academic labor, including increased reliance on non-tenured professionals, requires a re-evaluation of scholarly production.
• Focusing on the processes of academic labor offers opportunities for values-based decision-making in each microtransaction.
• Current incentives and rewards create an unsustainable and unstable scholarly ecosystem.
• Making change requires understanding the levers you control within your institution and outside of it; recognizing your own agency and the spaces in which you have influence.
• Values work is iterative, ongoing, and moves at the speed of trust.

Source: https://humetricshss.org/humetricshss-principles/