[Fwd: Re: citation indices]

[Fwd: Re: citation indices]

[jim stasheff]

In re: the attached
John Ewing writes:

Jim:

Sure, I'm happy to share thoughts -- all pretty frustrating.

John

For those of you suffer from government misuse of this `resource'
see if they acknowledge receipt of the IMU report - both summary and full.

jim


From: "John Ewing" <jhe@ams.org>
To: "'jim stasheff'" <jds@math.upenn.edu>
Subject: RE: citation indices
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2008 11:09:27 -0500

Jim:

The IMU-IMS-ICIAM report was widely circulated, pushed out to government and
university bureauacracies, and republished in many places throughout the
world. (The AMS Notices only wanted to publish the executive summary -- not
my call, of course, because the Notices has an independent editor-in-chief.)
There is really not much more one can do other then educate people. None of
these organizations, nor any societies, have the power to force people to
use common sense.

I have talked about citation statistics to several groups, one of which was
the NIH. Surprisingly, they were very receptive to the idea that one had to
use citation statistics with care. People in the biological sciences, with a
citation culture, seem to understand this.

On the other, the otherwise mild report has drawn intense negative reaction
from many other places, with headlines to stories along the lines of
"Confused mathematicians" and "Mish-Maths Statistics" and so forth. There is
a huge enterprise behind citation statistics, and it includes a large part
of the scientific community -- people who enthisiastically promote the use
of citation data as a substitute for peer review. Parts of the mathematical
sciences are included in this effort (most prominently, statistics itself).
I've learned a lot from the reaction to the report, and in some ways I've
learned more from the reaction than from the work itself.

The original hope was that a sensible report from a respected international
body would help to persuade people to use common sense. In some places, that
worked. In many others, it's clearly had little or no effect.

Of course, the misuse of statistics in a world gone mad to quantify every
aspect of life extends far beyond citation statistics. I sometimes yearn for
the better days of the past ... a sure sign I'm growing old.

John

--------------
John Ewing
Exec Dir, AMS
401-455-4100
--------------
See Math Moments at www.ams.org/mathmoments

-----Original Message-----
From: jim stasheff [mailto:jds@math.upenn.edu]
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2008 10:57 AM
To: jhe@ams.org; jim stasheff
Subject: citation indices

john,

I've received lots of sad stories about misuse of ISI Citation Index
for hiring,promotion, tenure and even orders about where to publish.
After the IMU report, what is being done to counter this pernicious
influence?

jim