A set of honest questions about measuring performance of academics versus other jobs - to put the insanity in perspective (thread)
First some examples of quantitative metrics: number of publications, number of citations, H-index, number of grants received (and amount), social media scores (PlumX/Altmetric), number of PhDs supervised, ...other? Many of these are public and everybody can see them
In other jobs, are there public measures of performance? If you are a private bank employee, do they account how many loans you granted per year? If you are a surgeon at a public hospital, are you measured by how many surgeries you perform yearly? Can everybody see these data?
In other jobs, how do you benchmark with others? Do people in other jobs actually compare with other people with same jobs/positions? Do they only look at the salary or what? Do you just check their linkedIN?
Which other jobs are obsessed with measuring performance? I can think about Football/baseball players and professional athletes in general (both how much $ they are worth and how many e.g. goals they scored), others? Which ones in the public sector?
Important question: WHY are we measuring so much in academia? is it because the assumption is that quantitative measures capture IMPACT? Ensure public money used actually well spent? People think academics are lazy and we need to check their productivity? Other?
Other important question: as an academic do you associate quantity with quality? Many publications means you are GOOD at your job? or BETTER than another like you? What about in other jobs outside academia, same quantity/quality association?
end of thread. Happy to read any ref you might suggest on the topic.
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