The registration of art and design research outcomes: Visualizing the invisible (Case study: The Flemish FRIS-registration format)

Abstract

Research evaluation practices - and the measurement of research quality and impact they imply - are being looked at from very different angles. For research information managers transparency and access probably constitute the most urgent issues at the current moment, while R&D directors and research policymakers devote their attention to the ethical consequences and practical implications of open access and open data (NordFosk, 2016). There is another important pressing preoccupation of the latter group, namely the validity and robustness of current research evaluation protocols.

Existing research evaluation models all depart from registered data in institutional and/or research policy CRIS. The most heard concern in research management circles relates to the identification and implementation of systematically collected and well-documented objective metrics for impact measurement, especially societal impact measurement (Bornmann, 2013). A second worry in the same midst has to do with the steady rise, both proportionally as with regard to policy appreciation, of practice-based research. In sharp contrast to the standard practice of communicating research results in the form of publications, outcomes resulting from applied research often are not communicated through writing but rather take on quite different dissemination forms. Registration systems for non-written output of national evaluation frameworks, research funding agencies etc. are not always open and considerate towards non-written output. Within these databases, non-written outcomes lack a systematic informative organization, therefore visibility and as a result thereof recognition in terms of quality and impact valuation (and the subsequent funding that is attached to that).