Principle statements and best practices about responsible metrics abound, and they are useful benchmarks for dos and don’ts when creating an impact profile. Better decision-making through responsible research evaluation from the INORMS Research Evaluation Working Group goes further, providing a practical guide to help researchers work through the evaluation process:
- (S)tart with what you value
- (C)ontext
- (O)ptions
- (P)robe
- (E)valuate
In Introducing SCOPE – a process for evaluating responsibly, two members of the working group describe considerations within each of these steps to help the researcher present a nuanced understanding of their impact by moving through these questions, rather than backwards from any available metric. They remind us that “most of the stuff we want to measure, we can’t actually measure… It’s an art, not a science: a matter of judgement.” By addressing the points in the SCOPE process, the researcher provides their audience with the rationale for their evaluation. This SCOPE one-pager gives a concise summary of considerations.
