{"id":91643,"date":"2018-06-19T10:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T09:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/?p=29252"},"modified":"2025-08-06T21:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:35:16","slug":"metaphor-and-metrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/blog\/metaphor-and-metrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Metaphor and Metrics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of a basket, or a tide, let\u2019s talk about metrics as mosaic.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Images influence how we think. \u00a0That\u2019s why metaphors matter.\u00a0 They can clarify and improve our understanding of complex concepts.\u00a0 They can both reflect and shape our attitudes.<\/p>\n

The metaphors of journal metrics started with \u201cimpact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Impact[1]<\/a>:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0a : to have a direct effect or impact on : impinge on<\/p>\n

b : to strike forcefully; also : to cause to strike forcefully<\/p>\n

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) represented how a journal interacted with other journals, how it had a direct effect<\/em> on the literature, how it struck forcefully<\/em> in the scholarly dialogue.\u00a0 In physics, the concept of \u201cimpact\u201d carries a sense of movement, of momentum and the transfer of energy.\u00a0 The nomenclature of indicators at ISI \u2013 \u201cImpact\u201d, \u201cImmediacy\u201d, \u201chalf-life\u201d \u2013 were mathematically vague, but linguistically rich.\u00a0 The drive to create a new way of perceiving the complex interactions of millions of researchers and their articles was a passion, and it deserved poetry.<\/p>\n

Years later, when the numbers and types of indicators have expanded, the names chosen are descriptive of their critique (\u201cRetraction Index\u201d), their source (\u201cScimago Journal Rank\u201d), their method of calculation (\u201cEigenfactor Score\u201d) or even their originator (\u201ch-index\u201d), but they lack the evocative imagery of the first generation of metrics.<\/p>\n

As the use of metrics expanded, the abuse of metrics expanded with it, the images that arose became grim, dire, even diseased: \u201ccounting house[2]<\/a>\u201d, \u201cdevouring science[3]<\/a>\u201d, \u201cImpactitis[4]<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Metaphor signaled the community\u2019s discomfort with how assessment was developing.\u00a0 The words they chose expressed the vexation and angst about a misrepresentation of the world in which scholarship is done.<\/p>\n

But research itself is so often based on measurement; thus the use of measurement in the assessment of research is a compelling prospect. The wish to measure research met the breadth of measurements available, and the images began to express both the number of measures, and the need to choose them:\u00a0 a \u201ctide\u201d[5]<\/a>, and a \u201cbasket\u201d [6]<\/a> full.\u00a0 These metaphors represent metrics as a formless quantity, a non-specific group.\u00a0 They convey the presence of many options, give no sense of the mechanism or purpose of choosing.<\/p>\n

I would like to suggest a new metaphor for research assessment, and its careful, considered use of many available measurements:\u00a0 A mosaic. [7]<\/a><\/p>\n

A mosaic uses fragments, disparate parts, shards and pieces, to assemble and represent another truth.\u00a0 Bits of glass and pottery, of tile and shell \u2013 they are not, themselves a part of the ship or the person or image that is represented on the finished mosaic, but their deliberate, careful assembly results in a picture of something that exists in three dimensions.<\/p>\n

The Britannica<\/em> definition of mosaic has this wonderful phrase: \u201cMosaic pieces are anonymous fractions of the design\u201d[8]<\/a>.\u00a0 Each indicator does not have an isolated meaning, or, if it does, it is much less compelling in isolation than it is when it is incorporated into a larger picture.\u00a0 The tesserae of metrics and descriptors, of citation and usage, of downloads and clicks and mentions create an image of the research.\u00a0 They are not the thing itself, the work and thought and experiment and writing, nor are they the full picture of the value and the effect in the world of a work of scholarship, but they can represent the essential work of research.\u00a0 When carefully done, the mosaic is an art form, and has value in its own right.\u00a0 The skill of the mosaic artist, of the assessment scientist, is in the assembly of elements to create a meaningful, integrated, cohesive whole, a representation of scholarly work and of its contribution.<\/p>\n

Assessment is anchored in the need to convey information about what has taken place in science and scholarship by creating a picture of how that work has landed in the world, how it has created \u201cimpact.\u201d<\/p>\n

To discard the work, the science and the craft of research assessment is to belittle the work of the artists and artisans who create mosaics showing the value of research.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow the JCR 2018 blog series for further updates.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: Angela Martello<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/impact<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Adam, D. (2002). \u201cCitation analysis: The counting house.\u201d Nature, <\/em>415<\/strong>, 726\u2013729.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Monastersky, R (2005).\u00a0 \u201cThe number that\u2019s devouring science.\u201d Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em><\/strong>, October 14, 2005<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Van Diest PJ, Holzel H, Burnett D, et al (2001). \u201cImpactitis: new cures for an old disease.\u201d Journal of Clinical Pathology<\/em><\/strong> 54<\/strong>:817-819.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Wilsdon (2015).\u201dThe Metric Tide: Report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment.\u201d At: http:\/\/www.hefce.ac.uk\/media\/HEFCE,2014\/Content\/Pubs\/Independentresearch\/2015\/The,Metric,Tide\/2015_metric_tide.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Haustein (2015) https:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/StefanieHaustein\/haustein-isi2015-keynotereducedsize?next_slideshow=1<\/a>\u00a0 and others.\u00a0 The origin of the phrase \u201cbasket of metrics\u201d is interestingly obcure.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/art\/mosaic-art<\/a><\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/art\/mosaic-art<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of a basket, or a tide, let\u2019s talk about metrics as mosaic.   Images influence how we think. \u00a0That\u2019s why metaphors matter.\u00a0 They can clarify and improve our understanding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[62,1146],"class_list":["post-91643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia-government","tag-journal-citation-reports","tag-research-evaluation"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":91643},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287841,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91643\/revisions\/287841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}