BIP! Scholar: A Service to Facilitate Fair Researcher Assessment

TL;DR

BIP! Scholar is a web service designed to help researchers create profiles that reflect their diverse contributions, promoting fairer and more comprehensive research assessment practices.

Contribution

The paper introduces BIP! Scholar, a novel web-based platform that supports fair researcher evaluation by incorporating established guidelines and diverse research activities.

Findings

Supports comprehensive researcher profiles

Facilitates fairer evaluation practices

Aligns with established assessment guidelines

Abstract

In recent years, assessing the performance of researchers has become a burden due to the extensive volume of the existing research output. As a result, evaluators often end up relying heavily on a selection of performance indicators like the h-index. However, over-reliance on such indicators may result in reinforcing dubious research practices, while overlooking important aspects of a researcher's career, such as their exact role in the production of particular research works or their contribution to other important types of academic or research activities (e.g., production of datasets, peer reviewing). In response, a number of initiatives that attempt to provide guidelines towards fairer research assessment frameworks have been established. In this work, we present BIP! Scholar, a Web-based service that offers researchers the opportunity to set up profiles that summarise their research careers taking into consideration well-established guidelines for fair research assessment, facilitating the work of evaluators who want to be more compliant with the respective practices.