Stephen Downes

I join with Alex Usher in criticizing this poorly researched and frankly offensive publication (54 page PDF) from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) criticizing diversity in Canada Research Chair (CRC) hires. The grounds for this argument? Supposedly, diversity hires have lower H-Indices than non-diversity hires (an H-index i means an author has i papers cited i or more times). Usher quite properly tears this to shreds while also commenting "only clowns use it as the sole measure of scholarly quality, whether of an individual or a group of individuals." There's a lot more he could have said. For example (and I kid you not) the MLI paper uses an AI analysis of individuals' names to determine ethnicity. Also for example, it uses the openAlex API as an H-index service. According to this service, my H-index is 1. By contrast, the Google Scholar H-Index puts it at 43. I personally think MLI should retract this paper and apologize. As Usher writes, "it's utterly reprehensible that MLI would publish this. Treat it – and them – with the contempt this paper deserves." And I want to say unambiguously: it is good that the CRC program took into account, and hired for, qualified scholars representing a broad cross-section of demographics. We are the better for it.