June 2024
 

Improving research evaluation: The University of Tokyo is the first Japanese university to sign DORA
 

With more and more papers being published in an ever-growing number of academic journals—most legitimate, some predatory—evaluating the quality of research is becoming an increasingly difficult task. Institutions and funding agencies have conventionally relied on journal impact factors and other publication metrics when considering the quality of articles published by researchers, affecting decisions from hiring and tenure to grant applications. Published in 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends replacing journal-based metrics with a wider range of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Just recently, DORA released a guide to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of indicators and metrics that are commonly used.

The University of Tokyo is the first Japanese university to sign the DORA. DORA signatories, including researchers, institutions, publishers, and funders, commit to not using journal-based metrics to evaluate the quality of individual research articles when assessing “an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.” They also advocate for transparent evaluation criteria among other measures.

By following these practices, the hope is that researchers will be incentivized to produce higher-quality research and recognized accordingly for their hard work.