Citation, Usage and Access Metrics as Information Service for Scholars?

[Armbruster, Chris]

Dear colleagues,

It would seem that there exist tried-and-tested technologies and methods to deliver metric information services that would be of value to scholars in their routines of work, e.g. information search, literature evaluation, peer review, collaboration and competition etc.

At the same time I know only of a few services that have been designed explicitly with the scholars in mind (e.g. JIF and JUF I would discount, but gopubmed.com I would count).

I would like to invite you to review a new paper that argues for building and expanding a scholarly metric information service. Please send any comments to me (or the list).

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464706 

Thank you, 

Chris Armbruster

Abstract
As the Internet has enhanced the collection and provision of citation, usage and access metrics, the challenge lies neither in the technology nor the method, but in constructing databases that deliver services of value to the scholar. However, the development of metrics has hitherto been driven by the needs of external research assessment (governments and funders), while publishers and libraries have focussed on their own needs (e.g. journal impact and usage factors).
Scholars often criticize research assessment and the use of particular metrics as a zero-sum game whose undesirable consequences far outweigh the benefits. However, this is not to be confused with a general prejudice against metrics, which are principally compatible with the scholarly recognition and rewards system. But it does indicate that current metric information services often do not serve the needs of scholars. 
The question everybody should be asking is: What kind of metric information services would serve scholars?

Keywords
Citation metrics, usage metrics, access metrics, research assessment, research information services, scholarly societies, scholarly publishers, postdocs, Hirsch index

Services mentioned
Journal impact factor, journal usage factor, GoPubMed, SSRN CiteReader, RePEc LogEc, RePEc CitEc, SPIRES, Harzing POP, Webometrics, ISI Web of Knowledge, Scopus, Google Scholar, Citebase, CiteSeer X, CERIF

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464706 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sigmetrics/attachments/20090902/2e6e54ef/attachment.html>