"Today I wouldn't get an academic job. It's as simple as that. I don't think I would be regarded as productive enough."
Nobel Laureate Peter Higgs explains how the focus on quantified indicators (number of publications, citations) harms scientific progress.
"A strong motivation to engage in extra work and a fear of being overlooked [while remote working] has the potential to turn into over-commitment and self-exploitation, which could subsequently lead to higher levels of stress or even burnouts."
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#MayDay
"Rankings and metrics create competition, and turn us into achievement-subjects, focused on striving to overtake those we are compared with, at the expense of our individual and collective well-being."
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"When environmental performance is reduced to an indicator like 'kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions', other crucial environmental qualities like biodiversity are rendered virtually invisible."
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"Because of the central role of evaluation and grading, it sometimes seems as if scoring points in education is more important than developing oneself, thinking critically, and finding out exactly how something works."
(Quote from "The Quantified Society", available soon)
"When 'environmental performance' is reduced to an indicator like kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, other crucial environmental qualities like biodiversity are rendered virtually invisible."
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Swiss university says that not the quantity of publications matters (measured in rankings), but the content (not evaluated in rankings). ✅
Couldn't agree more.
#quantifiedsociety
#indicatorism
"This business of 'publish or perish' has been a catastrophe. People write things which should never have been written and which should never be printed. Nobody's interested."
- Hannah Arendt
#quantifiedsociety
What happens when organizations measure and reward performance of professionals?
Employees change their behavior "by avoiding tasks that do not yield quantifiable results."
👉
“Bourgeois society is infected by monomania:
the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes.”
- Simone Weil
The cover is ready...! 🎉👇
Follow this account for news and updates on The Quantified Society - a book on how metrics and performance measures shape and distort our society.
Expected: first half of 2024!
#meetmaatschappij
#quantifiedsociety
"Despite science knowing for a very long time that performance-based rewards are probably not the best way to motivate employees with complex tasks, many organizations still rely on them."
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🎼It's the mooost wonderful time of the yeaear...
Did you know this "Christmas" painting by Brueghel is all about counting?
It's known as "The Numbering at Bethlehem" and depicts pregnant Mary & Joseph on their way to be counted (!) in the official census of Quirinius!
"When “environmental performance” is reduced to an indicator like kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, other crucial environmental qualities like biodiversity are rendered virtually invisible."
👉
"When measurement systems like student evaluations of teaching are used [..] this can lead to stress and alienation. Also, it can trigger ‘indicatorism’: behavior aimed at manipulating an indicator while losing track of the original goal."
#indicatorism
"Performance Measurement (PM) characteristics such as fairness, subjectivity, and ease-of-use [...] have a significant impact on the outcomes that PM yields."
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"These findings suggest that institutions focused on student learning and career success may want to abandon SET ratings as a measure of faculty's teaching effectiveness."
(4/4)
Are online reviews reliable...?
Burger King (
@BurgerKing
) 🍔 Belgium is manipulating
@Google
Review ratings by requesting customers to give a five-star review in return for a burger, shake, or coffee.
#indicatorism
The Kindle edition of The Quantified Society is out now on Amazon!
For a free sample text from the book, check out:
For a short article in
@BASeditors
on content from the book, see:
#quantifiedsociety
"managers made use of software packages to monitor employees' activities [...] In addition, our findings indicate that both supervisors and clients became more demanding, which in various cases led to tighter, more constraining control over employees."
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"The omnipresence of quantified performance information about our achievements (e.g., online likes, sport accomplishments, citations) puts us in a never-ending competition with millions of others around the globe."
Link:
"When 'environmental performance' is reduced to an indicator like kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, other crucial environmental qualities like biodiversity are rendered virtually invisible."
Source:
Are university rankings biased?
"We show that global universities’ research performance, as measured by publications in top journals, declines as the differences between their local language and English increase."
@UWankings
PS the Venn diagram is from the book "The Quantified Society", which is expected in 2024.
A Dutch version is already available ("De Meetmaatschappij", )
"As quantified performance measures cannot do justice to the value and contributions of individuals, they can trigger feelings of injustice, which can negatively impact employees’ mental health."
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