Affecting the influencing factor?A responsible peer review

Text ｜ "China Science News" reporter Han Yangmei Profile Reporter Yan Wenyi

Pursuing popular, "manipulation" data, vicious competition ... In recent years, in scientific evaluation, the misuse factors have brought many negative impacts to the scientific community.

In order to reverse this bad situation, the Literature and Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to abandon the "three -year average impact factor" and switch to the "journal surpassing index"; "Nature" also posted a complicated "disrupt factor" computing assessment thesis innovation.

In an interview with the China Science Journal, many experts mentioned that no matter what kind of value and "factor", it is just a tool that cannot be used as a standard for scientific research and evaluation. We need to establish a honest and responsible peer evaluation mechanism. Essence

SCI founder's entrustment

When talking about influencing factor, start with SCI (scientific quotes).

U.S. Intelligence scientist and scientific measurement, Euge Caifeld, is the founder of SCI. He put forward the concept of citing attraction and citation technology, and created a new field of research on literature and scientific development from the perspective of citation.

From 1951 to 1953, he participated in a project at Columbia University, mainly for research on information retrieval. But the information retrieval system at that time was very backward, so he and his colleagues wanted to invented a better retrieval system.

Later, he found that in some cases of the legal system, lawyers would quote similar cases when they analyzed whether a person was criminal. As a result, Cofeld was inspired by it: the ins and outs of a problem can be presented through the relationship between the files and cited.

After that, he extended SCI to the Web of Science platform and recorded the most influential research results judged by researchers in various research fields in the statistics of the platform. At the same time, it was evaluated and compared with individuals. The scientific research performance of institutions, countries and regions provides a data basis.

However, what Garfield did not expect was that the tool he developed became the most important or even the only scale for measuring the academic level of Chinese universities, scientific research institutions, and educational research workers in Chinese universities, scientific research institutions, and educational research workers. This is also criticized by scientific researchers.

To this end, he repeatedly emphasized when he went to China in September 2009 to participate in the scientific and metable academic seminar held by the China Institute of Science and Technology Information. Tools can only be used as a perspective in the evaluation work. It cannot represent all the objects of the evaluation. It is unreasonable to quote the impact factors of the journal to evaluate the personal scientific research ability. "

This view is also the consensus of the academic community.

Fan Xiuxun, director of the Tongji University Education Evaluation Research Center, has been engaged in evaluation for a long time. She agrees with Calfield's point of view and told the China Science News that the paper is only one of the carriers of scientific research results.

Researcher Yang Liying, director of the Measurement and Evaluation Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the China Science News that the core of the release of the "journal transcendence index" was to correct the limitations of the previous periodic impact factor calculation in order to better reflect the impact of the journal. It is worth noting that it is not a universal indicator, especially the absolute factor in determining the quality and scientific research level of a scientific researcher.

The influence of "short -sightedness"

In recent years, although the voices of "theory, SCI, and only influential factors" have continued, and many related measures have been introduced in the country and localities, they have not been eliminated or fully practiced.

Fan Xiuxun pointed out that there are multiple "incompatible" as indexes of influence factor as an evaluation indicator.

First of all, the influence factors of the journal published the thesis and the value of the scientific research results carried by the thesis are not necessarily connected. The paper is cited more, and it may not necessarily represent the high level of thesis. As we all know, the review of the scriptures is generally cited many times; the direction of the paper is different, and the citation situation will be much different. For example, the number of references in articles in the field of life and health will be much more likely to study the papers in the theorem of mathematical formulas.

Secondly, there may be not many people who can understand high -level original research results for a while, and the low quantity is reasonable; even more, if most scholars hold the opposite opinion on the point of view of a thesis, everyone quotes first before quoting it before Criticism, then the high of the paper cannot be explained.

"As for the use of data for man -brushing, not only the time and energy of scientific researchers are spent, but also the country's precious scientific research funds and resources. This academic dislocation has severely damaged the normal scientific research order and mechanism of results discovery." The serious consequences of the "inferior coin expelled good coins" caused by this expressed concerns.

Gu Bohong, a professor of textile composite materials disciplines at the School of Textile College of Donghua University, told the Journal of China to pursue SCI, influence factors, and have a relationship with the academic circles and impetuous mentality. In order to evaluate, everyone flock in a popular field.

"The culture of evaluation with numbers reflects the short -term effects of our evaluation system, and it will also bring the" short -sighted "behavior of academic research." Gu Bohong observed that young teachers were promoted, students graduated to find jobs, and the resumes issued will all be in the resumes. The cumulative impact factor value of the articles published by the article, some articles have not even done experiments, and the content is "new bottle of old wine".

Gu Bohong admits that under this evaluation system, although he can understand the behavior of students, "it has led to a bad impact, the internal volume is serious, and only short -term value. "Affected". Faced with difficulties in peer reviews

During the interview, experts all proposed a relatively scientific evaluation mechanism -peer review.

As a scientific research evaluation person and Gu Bohong, who is evaluated, he believes that the little peers have the most right to speak. "They know the most to study whether it is original, whether it will produce social value, and influence geometry."

Gu Bohong also said that the judging of the small peer is indeed an important way to replace the influencing factor, but it is difficult to find the real little peer and the cost is high. For example, Tu Yu's papers with the partner about artemisinin were published in the "Science Bulletin" in February 1977, but it was not won until 2015 that it won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. After nearly 40 years of long test.

In addition, it is difficult to avoid in the same circle, and some scientific and technological problems are difficult to adopt international peer reviews.

Garfield also mentioned the rationality of evaluation in the "peer" field. Compare".

Institutions responsible for evaluating work are an important part. Garfield pointed out that "Many scientific managers now want a number to solve all the evaluation problems, they want 'fast'. Either evaluation person and assessment journal, there are many different indicators, measure a lot of ruler measures a lot of measuring a lot People, this is not right, we have to have comprehensive evaluation indicators. "

"Many academic evaluation work is responsible for the administrative department, with a certain amount of administrative evaluation. Due to the high professionalism of academic achievements, it is difficult to scientifically evaluate the content of specific scientific research results, and often rely on some quantitative indicators." Fan Xiuxun also believes that the administrative evaluation should be weakened. The management department shall give a certain right to academic evaluation and give the evaluation standards for academic achievements to peer experts, especially small peers.

Fan Xiuxun also said that the reason why the peer reviews are not so scientific and not trusted today lies in the so -called "peers" administrative leadership, academic authority, and human relationships in the culture hindering the scientific performance of the peers, so " Establish a responsibility mechanism or accountability mechanism. "

"Unified power and responsibility, rights and reputation must be equivalent." In Fan Xiuzheng's view, scientists should truly take responsibility, establish an integrity mechanism, and protect their academic reputation. It is necessary to prevent the review of the peer evaluation from the institutional mechanism. It is still "administrative power", but its form is a "shield" that can be used to cope with the outside world questioning the evaluation.

"China Science News" (2022-08-25 The 1st edition of the 1st edition)

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