‘Knowmetrics: Knowledge measurement in the digital society (Knowmetrics)’

Domenico Fiormonte, Università Roma Tre; Liwen Vaughan, Western University; Daniel Torre Salinas; Enrique Herrera Viedma and Salvador del Barrio García, University of Granada; Isabel Galina Russel, National Autonomous university of Mexico; and Ernesto Priego Ramírez, City University London.

The digital society regularly brings forth new forms of knowledge generation and dissemination that are outside the scope of traditional methods of assessment based on bibliometric impact. Likewise, the openness that characterizes social media requires us to measure other impacts of academic output besides those linked to research. This problem is particularly acute with disciplines undergoing a digital transformation, as is currently the case with digital humanities.

For the digital humanities to develop and consolidate effectively, we need to identify and evaluate the new digital academic artifacts that often stand as the main result of a scholarly project or career. The goal of offering a response to the current assessment system that pays proper due to the digital transformation of knowledge is addressed by the proposal “Knowmetrics: Knowledge measurement in the digital society.” The project will be guided by an open science philosophy combining theoretical propositions with applied developments via the “Knowmetrics” web platform, which constitutes the nucleus of the project and its communication plan. Work will proceed along two lines:

– 1 (micro), focusing on the identification of social science and digital humanities researchers, the design of a taxonomy of digital academic artifacts and indicators to evaluate them, and the proposal of an integrated academic impact report for digital humanists, embracing multiple dimensions from research to social involvement; and,

– 2 (macro), evaluation of the digital impact of knowledge in universities using various approaches: a Knowmetrics index based on the above work, altmetrics and Internet media.