Journal, Article, and Author Metrics: A Just-In-Time Video for P&T Committee Members

Background: Over the last three years, a Midwest medical school’s library has collaborated with the schools’ research affairs and assessment committees to support promotion and tenure (P&T) administrators and educate the academic research community. The library’s role includes preparing and delivering training sessions and workshops on scholarly metrics for early-career faculty and P&T candidates. To help P&T chairs, administrators, and candidates become acquainted with research metrics, two librarians worked in partnership with the medical school’s faculty professional development committee and with the library’s instructional design librarian to create an asynchronous video presentation.

Description: Due to previous library outreach initiatives focused on scholarly metrics, the librarians were asked to convert a current training session into a video. The librarians were asked to provide further details about the most popular scholarly metrics used for traditional academic research assessment. To develop and create an asynchronous video presentation, the librarians of the library’s research team partnered internally with the library’s instructional design librarian, who has expertise in creating instructional videos. Collaboration with the instructional librarian was key to designing effective learning material including applying the storyboarding technique to organize the content and enhance the final video. The video provides introductory information about scholarly metrics for responsible research assessment. Using existing materials and content as a starting point, the librarians worked together to outline the video’s script, storyboard, and produce the video with attention to the professional development committee’s request.

Conclusion: This successful and efficient partnership with the faculty professional development committee and the library’s instructional librarian led to the creation of a nine-minute video. The final product was posted on YouTube and is embedded in the library’s Scholarly Impact LibGuide. As part of the outreach activities regarding impact metrics, this educational material is an important component for sharing ideas and driving conversations regarding the responsible use of metrics and research assessment. We plan to create additional videos that provide a breakdown of the content covered in the first video and provide further details and hands-on activities. This initiative has to led to additional requests for training on these concepts and increased understanding of research metrics among faculty preparing for P&T.