The École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) is among the first Canadian universities to sign the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which enhances parameters other than the journal impact factor to assess the results of scholarly research. As such, pre-publication versions of articles, data sets, software, protocols, training of researchers, social impacts and policy changes that result from research will now be considered in evaluating the research results of ÉTS researchers.
The ÉTS joins 19,013 organisations and individuals from 144 countries, including the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) and the three major Canadian granting agencies, who have adopted the DORA as a measure for assessing research.
It should be noted that the use of impact factors has been questioned for several years by many data science experts. Among the criticism is the fact that the impact factor varies greatly from one field to another, that there is some confusion about what can be considered a citation, and that it can be inflated by citations from editorials, letters, or media that are not recognised for calculating the impact factor. In addition, prestigious journals with a high impact factor are charging authors increasingly more, which hinders the transmission of knowledge and creates inequities between wealthy and less wealthy researchers.
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