Using scientometric indicators for reporting research portfolio: Field patterns of metric-wiseness

Rousseau and Rousseau (2017) have proposed the concept to metric-wiseness which is defined as a researcher’s capacity to use the characteristics and formats of scientometric indicators to present their own research value. They conducted a pilot study in the area of agricultural economy and showed various interesting differences in the respondents’ knowledge about indicators. However, this concept has not been investigated across various fields of science yet. Thus, my findings might be a relevant contribution showing how researchers use metrics in various fields.

In this presentation, I would like to share the results of my research on metric-wiseness. I have analyzed 3,695 documents (82,710 pages in total) of the so-called self-presentations from the academic promotion procedures in all fields of science in Poland (the 2011–2016 period). I have used the MaxQDA and SPSS software to code and analyze the documents.

The results of my analysis make it possible to answer the following questions: What are differences between the different fields of science in using scientometric indicators for reporting research portfolio? What are differences between the female and male scholars in using scientometric indicators? and – finally – Is the metric-wiseness related with the publication patterns (publication types)?

My findings prove that in general there are significant differences between ‘hard sciences’ and ‘soft sciences’ in the metric-wiseness patterns. For instance, scholars from medical sciences are „heavy users” of scientometric indicators, whereas scholars from the humanities write the shortest self-presentations and almost do not use scientometric indicators.

Rousseau, Sandra; Rousseau, Ronald (2017). Being Metric-Wise: Heterogeneity in Bibliometric Knowledge. El profesional de la información, 2017, mayo-junio, v. 26, n. 3.