Re:Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
by jessriedel on Monday April 03, 2017 @09:57AM
(#14022757)
> ... hospital infections are very clear and obvious metrics.
Are you kidding? There are all sorts of ways for hospitals and doctors to manipulate this stuff, e.g., attract healthier patients (less compromised immune systems) or ones who are wealthier, younger, and more likely to follow instructions; give more prophylactic antibiotics; classify more patients as palliative http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-hospitals-... ; slant cause-of-death classification when there is ambiguity.
Re:Every attempt to manage academia makes it worse
by jdmichal on Monday April 03, 2017 @12:49PM
(#14024463)
I remember an article here about how hard it is to gather metrics on MSRA-related deaths precisely because they are often not mentioned in the cause-of-death reports. I think this was it:
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-uncou...
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
The measure has to be concrete enough to not be manipulatable.
For example, aircraft mechanical failures or hospital infections are very clear and obvious metrics. And besides outright lying and manipulation, the metrics speak for themselves and can't be corrupted.
You can't, however, measure "education" or "intelligence". You can approximate it and the more you make depend on the results the worse the already bad metrics become.