DORA aims to stop the use of the “journal impact factor” in judging an individual scientist’s work
The SAN FRANCISCO DECLARATION ON RESEARCH Assessment (DORA) “aims to stop the use of the ‘journal impact factor’ in judging an individual scientist’s work. The Declaration states that the impact factor must not be used as “a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.” DORA also provides a list of specific actions, targeted at improving the way scientific publications are assessed, to be taken by funding agencies, institutions, publishers, researchers, and the organizations that supply metrics. These recommendations have thus far been endorsed by more than 150 leading scientists and 75 scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the publisher of Science).
The DORA recommendations are critical for keeping science healthy. As a bottom line, the leaders of the scientific enterprise must accept full responsibility for thoughtfully analyzing the scientific contributions of other researchers. To do so in a meaningful way requires the actual reading of a small selected set of each researcher’s publications, a task that must not be passed by default to journal editors.” – Bruce Alberts
To learn more about the recommendations please click here. The original SAN FRANCISCO DECLARATION ON RESEARCH Assessment (DORA) is accessible here.