Page 12 - Becoming Metric Wise

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The term metrics has become one of the main topics of interest in science
in general. The DORA declaration (DORA, 2012), the Leiden
Manifesto (Hicks et al., 2015) and the Metric Tide report (Wilsdon et al.,
2015) are just the tip of the iceberg of the discussions going on in top
journals such as Nature and Science as well as in evaluation committees all
over the world.
For this reason, all scientists should become knowledgeable about
indicators used to evaluate them. They should know the publication-
citation context, the correct mathematical formulae of indicators being
used by evaluating committees, their consequences and how such indica-
tors can be misused. In one word: they should become metric-wise
(Rousseau & Rousseau, 2015, 2017). This is exactly the purpose of this
book: To make scientists metric-wise. In this way readers will become
aware of the evaluation techniques applied to their scientific output, mak-
ing them stronger when being evaluated for funding, hiring and tenure.

1.1 METRICS IN THE INFORMATION SCIENCES
Information science is defined in the Online Dictionary for Library
and Information Science (ODLIS) (Reitz, s.a.) as “The systematic study
and analysis of the sources, development, collection, organization, dissem-
ination, evaluation, use, and management of information in all its forms,
including the channels (formal and informal) and technology used in its
communication.” Already in the 1930s, Otlet (1934) defined biblio-
metrics as the measurement of all aspects related to books and documents.
Otlet, a Belgian documentalist, and one of the developers of the
Universal Decimal Classification, introduced the idea of bibliometrics in
his main work: Traite ´ de Documentation (Treatise on Documentation). In
this book, a general overview of the information sciences at that time, he
covers a plethora of topics related to books, libraries and documentation.
Among these he introduced the term “bibliometrics” or more
precisely—as the book was written in French—“bibliome ´trie”. This new

Becoming Metric-Wise © 2018 Elsevier Ltd.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102474-4.00001-7 All rights reserved. 1