Project Summary
I’m involved with some overlapping projects focusing on advocacy for expanded research impact measures both at my university, American University, and within academic librarianship. My primary project is at American, where we are in the process of revising all tenure guidelines across campus to incorporate DEI values. I have been and will continue to conduct outreach to promote values-based publishing and evaluation. As part of this fellowship, I hope is to begin fostering a community on campus that can share excitement, ideas, and work toward future initiatives. Within academic librarianship, I hope to continue the work established with the ACRL Framework for Impactful Scholarship and Metrics, which frames research evaluation possibilities for both scholarly and practitioner impact. Finally, my current research focuses on evaluation of journals’ DEI practices – based on forthcoming research with my co-collaborators, I have created a checklist for my university faculty to use for this evaluation, and would like to explore the viability of such a model for evaluator/researcher use on a larger scale.
Biography
Rachel Borchardt is the Associate Director for Research and Instructional Services and the Science Librarian at American University. Rachel graduated from Oberlin College with undergraduate degrees in neuroscience and psychology, as well as obtaining an MLIS with a concentration in medical librarianship from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining American University, Rachel served as the Biology and Neuroscience and Behavior Biology Librarian at Emory University. Rachel’s research interests focus on equity in scholarly publications and research evaluation, particularly centered on incorporation of appropriate and equitable qualitative and quantitative evaluation models that acknowledge, question, and combat existing power structures in publishing and academia. Rachel's previous research has focused on bibliometrics and altmetrics, and she co-authored the 2015 open access book, Meaningful Metrics: A 21st Century Librarian’s Guide to Bibliometrics, Altmetrics, and Research Impact. When not working, Rachel is a mom of 2, and drinks tea, plays pinball and runs to avoid staring into the existential void for too long. She is thrilled to be joining the HuMetricsHSS Community Fellows, and looks forward to working with and being inspired by the other members of the program.