From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4734 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Pedro Resende Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Science Citation Index Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 21:21:58 +0000 Message-ID: Reply-To: Pedro Resende NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v929.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241020137 14600 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:48:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:48:57 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 5 20:21:23 2008 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:21:23 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1L8kpe-0002wh-CV for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:15:38 -0400 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 39 Original-Lines: 65 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4734 Archived-At: As an example of how some governments may indeed be tempted to use ISI information for tenure and promotion decision, Iet me mention what happened in Portugal some years ago. There was a short-lived social- democrat government in Portugal whose science minister (a professor from IST's mechanical engineering department) proposed to base the evaluation of scientific production on a simple formula. The formula originally included niceties such as requiring every scientist, whatever his field, to publish an average of four papers per year --- ranging from social sciences to chemistry (!!!) More, these papers were supposed to be published in ISI cited papers. A series of fierce complaints from the portuguese scientific community followed, in an attempt at least to fix the formula by providing realistic expectations regarding average numbers of publications according to field. The requirement that publications be ISI-indexed was probably going to be retained, though, except that the government was short-lived and the whole evaluation system was swiftly (and fortunately) replaced by a more effective peer review system. About that time I learned from Ronnie Brown that he had had some correspondence with Eugene Garfield (the founder of ISI) and in particular had mentioned to him how SCI seemed to be used in some countries in order to assess scientific production. Garfield's reply was crisp and clear: "The SCI was not designed for that purpose" (these may not have been the exact words, but it was the spirit as far as I remember). Why some governments will insist on (mis)using such a commercial tool is not completely clear. My guess is that in some cases this is a consequence of lack of understanding of how science works, on the part some political decision makers. Certainly the need to cut on expenses must play a role, too. Best, Pedro. On Dec 3, 2008, at 5:23 PM, John Baez wrote: > Dear category theorists - > > Thomson Scientific runs the well-known "Science Citation Index", which > "provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with > quick, > powerful access to the bibliographic and citation information they > need to > find relevant, comprehensive research data". I believe data from > this index > is used in tenure and promotion decisions at some universities. > > I just heard that "Theory and Applications of Categories" and > "Cahiers" are > not listed on the Science Citation Index, while - for example - > Elsevier's > journal "Homeopathy" is listed there. > > Is this true? Is there some way to improve the situation? > > Best, > jb > >