One way in which change of opinion and user perceptions can be evidenced is by gathering of stakeholder and user testimonies or undertaking surveys. In the UK, more sophisticated assessments of impact incorporating wider socio-economic benefits were first investigated within the fields of Biomedical and Health Sciences (Grant 2006), an area of research that wanted to be able to justify the significant investment it received. The time lag between research and impact varies enormously. CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) was developed for this purpose, first released in 1991; a number of projects and systems across Europe such as the ERC Research Information System (Mugabushaka and Papazoglou 2012) are being developed as CERIF-compatible. Although some might find the distinction somewhat marginal or even confusing, this differentiation between outputs, outcomes, and impacts is important, and has been highlighted, not only for the impacts derived from university research (Kelly and McNicol 2011) but also for work done in the charitable sector (Ebrahim and Rangan, 2010; Berg and Mnsson 2011; Kelly and McNicoll 2011). For more extensive reviews of the Payback Framework, see Davies et al. The case study does present evidence from a particular perspective and may need to be adapted for use with different stakeholders. 2007). 0000012122 00000 n 2009). evaluation of these different kinds of evaluands. Enhancing Impact. 0000346296 00000 n It is possible to incorporate both metrics and narratives within systems, for example, within the Research Outcomes System and Researchfish, currently used by several of the UK research councils to allow impacts to be recorded; although recording narratives has the advantage of allowing some context to be documented, it may make the evidence less flexible for use by different stakeholder groups (which include government, funding bodies, research assessment agencies, research providers, and user communities) for whom the purpose of analysis may vary (Davies et al. Impact assessments raise concerns over the steer of research towards disciplines and topics in which impact is more easily evidenced and that provide economic impacts that could subsequently lead to a devaluation of blue skies research. We suggest that developing systems that focus on recording impact information alone will not provide all that is required to link research to ensuing events and impacts, systems require the capacity to capture any interactions between researchers, the institution, and external stakeholders and link these with research findings and outputs or interim impacts to provide a network of data. evaluation practice and systems that go beyond the criteria and their definitions. Again the objective and perspective of the individuals and organizations assessing impact will be key to understanding how temporal and dissipated impact will be valued in comparison with longer-term impact. 0000342980 00000 n Throughout history, the activities of a university have been to provide both education and research, but the fundamental purpose of a university was perhaps described in the writings of mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1929). Indicators were identified from documents produced for the REF, by Research Councils UK, in unpublished draft case studies undertaken at Kings College London or outlined in relevant publications (MICE Project n.d.). If impact is short-lived and has come and gone within an assessment period, how will it be viewed and considered? The definition of health is not just a theoretical issue, because it has many implications for practice, policy, and health services. 0000003495 00000 n n.d.). Also called evaluative writing, evaluative essay or report, and critical evaluation essay . % Evaluation is a process which is continuous as well as comprehensive and involves all the tasks of education and not merely tests, measurements, and examination. Key features of the adapted criteria . SIAMPI is based on the widely held assumption that interactions between researchers and stakeholder are an important pre-requisite to achieving impact (Donovan 2011; Hughes and Martin 2012; Spaapen et al. In putting together evidence for the REF, impact can be attributed to a specific piece of research if it made a distinctive contribution (REF2014 2011a). The verb evaluate means to form an idea of something or to give a judgment about something. This is recognized as being particularly problematic within the social sciences where informing policy is a likely impact of research. They aim to enable the instructors to determine how much the learners have understood what the teacher has taught in the class and how much they can apply the knowledge of what has been taught in the class as well. 5. The range and diversity of frameworks developed reflect the variation in purpose of evaluation including the stakeholders for whom the assessment takes place, along with the type of impact and evidence anticipated. Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and. Many theorists, authors, research scholars, and practitioners have defined performance appraisal in a wide variety of ways. This transdisciplinary way of thinking about evaluation provides a constant source of innovative ideas for improving how we evaluate. It has been suggested that a major problem in arriving at a definition of evaluation is confusion with related terms such as measurement, On the societal impact of publicly funded Circular Bioeconomy research in Europe, Devices of evaluation: Institutionalization and impactIntroduction to the special issue, The rocky road to translational science: An analysis of Clinical and Translational Science Awards, The nexus between research impact and sustainability assessment: From stakeholders perspective. Author: HPER Created Date: 3/2/2007 10:12:16 AM . Table 1 summarizes some of the advantages and disadvantages of the case study approach. To demonstrate to government, stakeholders, and the wider public the value of research. A comparative analysis of these definitions reveal that in defining performance appraisal they were saying the same thing, but in a slightly modified way. In the UK, evaluation of academic and broader socio-economic impact takes place separately. This petition was signed by 17,570 academics (52,409 academics were returned to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise), including Nobel laureates and Fellows of the Royal Society (University and College Union 2011). The book also explores how different aspects of citizenship, such as attitudes towards diverse population groups and concerns for social issues, relate to classical definitions of norm-based citizenship from the political sciences. 60 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 63 /H [ 1325 558 ] /L 397637 /E 348326 /N 12 /T 396319 >> endobj xref 60 37 0000000016 00000 n 2007). From 2014, research within UK universities and institutions will be assessed through the REF; this will replace the Research Assessment Exercise, which has been used to assess UK research since the 1980s. From an international perspective, this represents a step change in the comprehensive nature to which impact will be assessed within universities and research institutes, incorporating impact from across all research disciplines. Understand. %PDF-1.3 Johnston (Johnston 1995) notes that by developing relationships between researchers and industry, new research strategies can be developed. One might consider that by funding excellent research, impacts (including those that are unforeseen) will follow, and traditionally, assessment of university research focused on academic quality and productivity. It has been acknowledged that outstanding leaps forward in knowledge and understanding come from immersing in a background of intellectual thinking that one is able to see further by standing on the shoulders of giants. << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> There is a distinction between academic impact understood as the intellectual contribution to ones field of study within academia and external socio-economic impact beyond academia. 0000002109 00000 n Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. What emerged on testing the MICE taxonomy (Cooke and Nadim 2011), by mapping impacts from case studies, was that detailed categorization of impact was found to be too prescriptive. only one author attempts to define evaluation. 0000004019 00000 n In the Brunel model, depth refers to the degree to which the research has influenced or caused change, whereas spread refers to the extent to which the change has occurred and influenced end users. The introduction of impact assessments with the requirement to collate evidence retrospectively poses difficulties because evidence, measurements, and baselines have, in many cases, not been collected and may no longer be available. 0000008591 00000 n The understanding of the term impact varies considerably and as such the objectives of an impact assessment need to be thoroughly understood before evidence is collated. It is a process that involves careful gathering and evaluating of data on the actions, features, and consequences of a program. Evaluation research aimed at determining the overall merit, worth, or value of a program or policy derives its utility from being explicitly judgment-oriented. This distinction is not so clear in impact assessments outside of the UK, where academic outputs and socio-economic impacts are often viewed as one, to give an overall assessment of value and change created through research. Aspects of impact, such as value of Intellectual Property, are currently recorded by universities in the UK through their Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey return to Higher Education Statistics Agency; however, as with other public and charitable sector organizations, showcasing impact is an important part of attracting and retaining donors and support (Kelly and McNicoll 2011). From the outset, we note that the understanding of the term impact differs between users and audiences. For systems to be able to capture a full range of systems, definitions and categories of impact need to be determined that can be incorporated into system development. (2007) adapted the terminology of the Payback Framework, developed for the health and biomedical sciences from benefit to impact when modifying the framework for the social sciences, arguing that the positive or negative nature of a change was subjective and can also change with time, as has commonly been highlighted with the drug thalidomide, which was introduced in the 1950s to help with, among other things, morning sickness but due to teratogenic effects, which resulted in birth defects, was withdrawn in the early 1960s. 0000002318 00000 n In many instances, controls are not feasible as we cannot look at what impact would have occurred if a piece of research had not taken place; however, indications of the picture before and after impact are valuable and worth collecting for impact that can be predicted. The case study of the Research Information System of the European Research Council, E-Infrastructures for Research and Innovation: Linking Information Systems to Improve Scientific Knowledge, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Current Research Information Systems, (June 69, 2012), pp. Donovan (2011) asserts that there should be no disincentive for conducting basic research. These case studies were reviewed by expert panels and, as with the RQF, they found that it was possible to assess impact and develop impact profiles using the case study approach (REF2014 2010). 2005). The Goldsmith report concluded that general categories of evidence would be more useful such that indicators could encompass dissemination and circulation, re-use and influence, collaboration and boundary work, and innovation and invention. Clearly the impact of thalidomide would have been viewed very differently in the 1950s compared with the 1960s or today. A total of 10 Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) were selected to perform semi-automatic segmentation of the condyles by using three free-source software (Invesalius, version 3.0.0, Centro de Tecnologia da . 2009; Russell Group 2009). Impact can be temporary or long-lasting. They risk being monetized or converted into a lowest common denominator in an attempt to compare the cost of a new theatre against that of a hospital. In undertaking excellent research, we anticipate that great things will come and as such one of the fundamental reasons for undertaking research is that we will generate and transform knowledge that will benefit society as a whole. Such a framework should be not linear but recursive, including elements from contextual environments that influence and/or interact with various aspects of the system. By evaluating the contribution that research makes to society and the economy, future funding can be allocated where it is perceived to bring about the desired impact. Metrics have commonly been used as a measure of impact, for example, in terms of profit made, number of jobs provided, number of trained personnel recruited, number of visitors to an exhibition, number of items purchased, and so on. 0000011585 00000 n What indicators, evidence, and impacts need to be captured within developing systems? The basic purpose of both measurement assessment and evaluation is to determine the needs of all the learners. The RQF pioneered the case study approach to assessing research impact; however, with a change in government in 2007, this framework was never implemented in Australia, although it has since been taken up and adapted for the UK REF. This article aims to explore what is understood by the term research impact and to provide a comprehensive assimilation of available literature and information, drawing on global experiences to understand the potential for methods and frameworks of impact assessment being implemented for UK impact assessment. Introduction, what is meant by impact? Muffat says - "Evaluation is a continuous process and is concerned with than the formal academic achievement of pupils. Even where we can evidence changes and benefits linked to our research, understanding the causal relationship may be difficult. An empirical research report written in American Psychological Association (APA) style always includes a written . SIAMPI has been used within the Netherlands Institute for health Services Research (SIAMPI n.d.). In development of the RQF, The Allen Consulting Group (2005) highlighted that defining a time lag between research and impact was difficult. (2011) Maximising the Impacts of Your Research: A Handbook for Social Scientists (Pubd online) <, Lets Make Science Metrics More Scientific, Measuring Impact Under CERIF (MICE) Project Blog, Information systems of research funding agencies in the era of the Big Data. Its objective is to evaluate programs, improve program effectiveness, and influence programming decisions. It is perhaps assumed here that a positive or beneficial effect will be considered as an impact but what about changes that are perceived to be negative? An evaluation essay is a composition that offers value judgments about a particular subject according to a set of criteria. HEFCE indicated that impact should merit a 25% weighting within the REF (REF2014 2011b); however, this has been reduced for the 2014 REF to 20%, perhaps as a result of feedback and lobbying, for example, from the Russell Group and Million + group of Universities who called for impact to count for 15% (Russell Group 2009; Jump 2011) and following guidance from the expert panels undertaking the pilot exercise who suggested that during the 2014 REF, impact assessment would be in a developmental phase and that a lower weighting for impact would be appropriate with the expectation that this would be increased in subsequent assessments (REF2014 2010). 0000007777 00000 n The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. This might describe support for and development of research with end users, public engagement and evidence of knowledge exchange, or a demonstration of change in public opinion as a result of research. It can be seen from the panel guidance produced by HEFCE to illustrate impacts and evidence that it is expected that impact and evidence will vary according to discipline (REF2014 2012). To allow comparisons between institutions, identifying a comprehensive taxonomy of impact, and the evidence for it, that can be used universally is seen to be very valuable. Although metrics can provide evidence of quantitative changes or impacts from our research, they are unable to adequately provide evidence of the qualitative impacts that take place and hence are not suitable for all of the impact we will encounter. 2007) who concluded that the researchers and case studies could provide enough qualitative and quantitative evidence for reviewers to assess the impact arising from their research (Duryea et al. Research findings will be taken up in other branches of research and developed further before socio-economic impact occurs, by which point, attribution becomes a huge challenge. To achieve compatible systems, a shared language is required. These metrics may be used in the UK to understand the benefits of research within academia and are often incorporated into the broader perspective of impact seen internationally, for example, within the Excellence in Research for Australia and using Star Metrics in the USA, in which quantitative measures are used to assess impact, for example, publications, citation, and research income. 2010; Hanney and Gonzlez-Block 2011) and can be thought of in two parts: a model that allows the research and subsequent dissemination process to be broken into specific components within which the benefits of research can be studied, and second, a multi-dimensional classification scheme into which the various outputs, outcomes, and impacts can be placed (Hanney and Gonzalez Block 2011). The Payback Framework systematically links research with the associated benefits (Scoble et al. In viewing impact evaluations it is important to consider not only who has evaluated the work but the purpose of the evaluation to determine the limits and relevance of an assessment exercise. Where narratives are used in conjunction with metrics, a complete picture of impact can be developed, again from a particular perspective but with the evidence available to corroborate the claims made. 0000334683 00000 n Authors from Asia, Europe, and Latin America provide a series of in-depth investigations into how concepts of . These traditional bibliometric techniques can be regarded as giving only a partial picture of full impact (Bornmann and Marx 2013) with no link to causality. The Payback Framework enables health and medical research and impact to be linked and the process by which impact occurs to be traced. Standard approaches actively used in programme evaluation such as surveys, case studies, bibliometrics, econometrics and statistical analyses, content analysis, and expert judgment are each considered by some (Vonortas and Link, 2012) to have shortcomings when used to measure impacts. One of the advantages of this method is that less input is required compared with capturing the full route from research to impact. Citations (outside of academia) and documentation can be used as evidence to demonstrate the use research findings in developing new ideas and products for example. (2008), and Hanney and Gonzlez-Block (2011). Frameworks for assessing impact have been designed and are employed at an organizational level addressing the specific requirements of the organization and stakeholders. Gathering evidence of the links between research and impact is not only a challenge where that evidence is lacking. Any information on the context of the data will be valuable to understanding the degree to which impact has taken place. 4 0 obj The current definition of health, formulated by the WHO, is no longer adequate for dealing with the new challenges in health care systems. An alternative approach was suggested for the RQF in Australia, where it was proposed that types of impact be compared rather than impact from specific disciplines. 1. A collation of several indicators of impact may be enough to convince that an impact has taken place. As a result, numerous and widely varying models and frameworks for assessing impact exist. 2006; Nason et al. However, there has been recognition that this time window may be insufficient in some instances, with architecture being granted an additional 5-year period (REF2014 2012); why only architecture has been granted this dispensation is not clear, when similar cases could be made for medicine, physics, or even English literature. Figure 1, replicated from Hughes and Martin (2012), illustrates how the ease with which impact can be attributed decreases with time, whereas the impact, or effect of complementary assets, increases, highlighting the problem that it may take a considerable amount of time for the full impact of a piece of research to develop but because of this time and the increase in complexity of the networks involved in translating the research and interim impacts, it is more difficult to attribute and link back to a contributing piece of research. The criteria for assessment were also supported by a model developed by Brunel for measurement of impact that used similar measures defined as depth and spread. 0000001178 00000 n The Oxford English Dictionary defines impact as a Marked effect or influence, this is clearly a very broad definition. This is a metric that has been used within the charitable sector (Berg and Mnsson 2011) and also features as evidence in the REF guidance for panel D (REF2014 2012). trailer << /Size 97 /Info 56 0 R /Root 61 0 R /Prev 396309 /ID[<8e25eff8b2a14de14f726c982689692f><7a12c7ae849dc37acf9c7481d18bb8c5>] >> startxref 0 %%EOF 61 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 55 0 R /Metadata 57 0 R /AcroForm 62 0 R >> endobj 62 0 obj << /Fields [ ] /DR << /Font << /ZaDb 38 0 R /Helv 39 0 R >> /Encoding << /PDFDocEncoding 40 0 R >> >> /DA (/Helv 0 Tf 0 g ) >> endobj 95 0 obj << /S 414 /T 529 /V 585 /Filter /FlateDecode /Length 96 0 R >> stream 2007). In developing the UK REF, HEFCE commissioned a report, in 2009, from RAND to review international practice for assessing research impact and provide recommendations to inform the development of the REF. 0000334705 00000 n Two areas of research impact health and biomedical sciences and the social sciences have received particular attention in the literature by comparison with, for example, the arts. There is a great deal of interest in collating terms for impact and indicators of impact. RAND selected four frameworks to represent the international arena (Grant et al. The Economic and Social Benefits of HRB-funded Research, Measuring the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts: A Review, Research Excellence Framework Impact Pilot Exercise: Findings of the Expert Panels, Assessment Framework and Guidance on Submissions, Research Impact Evaluation, a Wider Context. A very different approach known as Social Impact Assessment Methods for research and funding instruments through the study of Productive Interactions (SIAMPI) was developed from the Dutch project Evaluating Research in Context and has a central theme of capturing productive interactions between researchers and stakeholders by analysing the networks that evolve during research programmes (Spaapen and Drooge, 2011; Spaapen et al. The University and College Union (University and College Union 2011) organized a petition calling on the UK funding councils to withdraw the inclusion of impact assessment from the REF proposals once plans for the new assessment of university research were released. To evaluate impact, case studies were interrogated and verifiable indicators assessed to determine whether research had led to reciprocal engagement, adoption of research findings, or public value. If knowledge exchange events could be captured, for example, electronically as they occur or automatically if flagged from an electronic calendar or a diary, then far more of these events could be recorded with relative ease. 0000342937 00000 n HEFCE developed an initial methodology that was then tested through a pilot exercise. The main risks associated with the use of standardized metrics are that, The full impact will not be realized, as we focus on easily quantifiable indicators. Definitions of Evaluation ( by different authors) According to Hanna- "The process of gathering and interpreted evidence changes in the behavior of all students as they progress through school is called evaluation". Evaluation is a procedure that reviews a program critically.
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