nature今日发文宣布改造影响因子重塑期刊评价体系

1、Nature今日发文，宣布改造影响因子，重塑期刊评价体系！当地时间7月27日，Nature在线发表题为“ Time to remodel the journal impact factor 的社论， 并以 “ Nature andthe Nature journals are diversifying their presentation of performance indicators ”为小标题，宣Nature由版集团将 重塑期刊评价方式，改造期刊影响因子。1. Nature改造影响因子的英文原文及翻译小纳君现将Nature英文原文放置如下， 并附上翻译。 Time to remodel

2、 the journal impact factor是时候改造论文的影响因子体系了！Nature and theNature journals are diversifying their presentation of performance indicators.Nature也正在紧锣密豉地筹划：重新塑造影响因子评价体系，让评价体系多样化。Metrics areintrinsically reductive and, as such, can be dangerous.Relying on them as a yardstick of performance, rather than as

3、 a pointer to underlying achievements and challenges, usually leads to pathological behaviour. The journal impact factor is just such a metric.Nature 称期刊影响因子这种量化 从本质上来说，过于简化，而且甚至在使用过程中还存在被 滥用的风险。如果仅仅依靠期刊影响因子来衡量一篇文章的 好坏，而不注重这篇文章所带来的潜在价值和引起的舆论影 响，长此以往，这很容易导致一种病态行为。不得不说，期刊影响因子就是这么一种“病态”量化指标。During a ta

4、lk justover a decade ago, its co-creator, Eugene Garfield, compared his invention to nuclear energy.I expected it tobe used constructively while recognizing that in the wronghands it might be abused, “ he said. It did not occur to me that impact would one day become so controversial. 正如在10年前那场演说中所预见

5、的一样，影响因子的合伙创始 人Eugene Garfield曾将影响因子与核能相媲美。他说道：“我希望它能发挥由建设性的作用，但我也知道它也有可能会被 滥用。”但现在，他说道，我从来都没想到“影响因子”会引发 如止匕大的争议。 As readers of Nature probably know, journalimpact factors measure the average number of citations, per published article, for papers published over a two-year period. Journals do not cal

6、culate their impact factor directlyit is calculated and published by Thomson Reuters. 知道Nature的读者都知道，期刊影响因子用来衡量过去两年期 间所发表论文的平均引用数。这一数据不是由期刊中心直接 计算给由的，而是由 Thomson Reuters 计算并发布的。 Publishers have long celebrated strong impact factors. It is, after all, one of the measures of their output s significanc

7、e一as far as it goes.由版商们纷纷大肆宣扬其一路飙升的影 响因子。不用说，大家也知道，对由版商而言，期刊影响因子就是评估其发行量的重要指标之一。But the impact factoris crude and also misleading. It effectively undervalues papers in disciplines that are slow-burning or have lower characteristic citation rates. Being an arithmetic mean, it gives disproportionate

8、significance to a few very highly cited papers, and it falsely implies that papers with only a few citations are relatively unimportant. 但是， 影响因子本身 就是一种比较原始的、粗暴的量化标准，因而常常带有一定 的误导性。实际上，由于没有考虑到不同学科之间的差异性， 它很容易低估那些“慢热”和“冷门”领域的文章。就单单依靠“算术平均”这一数值来进行评判，这显然是有问题的。对于 那些“少而精”文章来说，在影响因子下所得到的影响力是严 重不成比例的，同时，这也给

9、读者发生了一个错误信息：低 影响因子的文章也就是是不好、不重要的文章。Theseshortcomings are well known, but that has not prevented scientists, funders and universities from overly relying on impact factors, or publishers (Natureinclud eds in the past)from excessively promoting them. As a result, researchers use the impact factor to h

10、elp them decide which journals to submit to - to an extent that is undermining good science. The resulting pressures and disappointments are nothing but demoralizing, and in badly run labs can encouragesloppy research that, for example, fails to test assumptions thoroughly or to take all the data in

11、to account before submitting big claims.尽管大家都知道，影响因子天生就存 在的缺陷，但依然受到了学术界得到热捧。大量科研工作者、经费管理者以及科研院校趋之若鹫，纷纷将其作为学术水平 的评估指标，由版商（包括 Nature ）也不遗余力地宣传影响 因子的作用。这样所带来的后果就是：研究者们开始利用影 响因子的高低来选择投递哪一家期刊，这在很大程度上抹杀 了 “科学氛围”。其中不乏令人痛心的案例比比皆是，比如： 一些道德败坏的科研机构甚至大力提倡“科研快餐”文化一一 在没有理论、实验做有力的支撑下，就开始胡编乱造，或者 没有充分地把问题思考清楚，就完成了一篇

12、“杰作”。The mostpernicious aspect of this culture, as Nature has pointed out in the past, has been a practice of using journal impact factors as a basis for assessment of individual researchers achievements. For example, when compiling a shortlist from several hundred job applicants, how easy it is to

13、rule out anyone without a high-impact-factor journal in their CV. 这种方式最不利的方面，就是用期刊影响因子作为评价个体 的研究成果已经成为一种习惯。例如，当从几百个求职者名 单选人时，如果他们简历没有高影响因子期刊的成果，很容 易就被去掉。 How to militate against such ametrics-obsessed culture?如何防止痴迷于这种量化指标呢？ First, an approach that some have applied in the past and whose time has su

14、rely come. Applicants for any job, promotion or funding should be asked to include a short summary of what they consider their achievements to be, rather than just to list their publications. This may sound simplistic, but some who have tried it find that it properly focuses attention on the candida

15、te rather than on journals. 首先，有一种已经经过时间检验的方法。任何求职、晋升或 资金申请，当事人都要求提供一个简短总结。列由他们认为 他们自己的重要工作，而不是只列由他们的作品。这听起来 可能是简单的，但有些尝试它的人发现，我们需要将注意力 集中在候选人，而不是在期刊上。这一点确实很难做到。Second, journals need to be more diverse in how they display their performance. Accordingly,Nature has updated its online journal metrics p

16、age to include an array of additional bibliometric data. 第二，期刊需要多样化的展示， 而不单只依靠影响因子。为此， Nature已经更新了其在线 杂志数据页，包括额外的许多新的计量数据。As a part of thisupdate, for Nature, the Nature journals and ScientificReports, we have calculated the two-year median - the median number of citations that articles published in

17、 2013and 2014 received in 2015. The median is not subject to distortion by outliers. (The two-year median is lower than the two-year impact factor: 24, down from 38, for Nature, for example.) For details, /2arq7om.Nature的另新变化是： 他们表示，将公布 2013、2014及2015近3年的发表论文的引 用中位数。引用中位数的优点是，它将不会受到“超高人气” 引用文章的影响，因此

18、更加客观准确。(引用中位数往往低于影响因子，例如nature的影响因子是38,而引用中位数 只有24.)有关详细信息，见于 /2arq7om.， Providing these extra metrics will not address the problem mentioned above of the diversity in citation characteristics between disciplines. Nor will it make much of a dent in impact-factor obsessions. But we hope that it will

19、at least provide a better means of assessing our output, and put the impact factor in a better perspective. 提供这些额夕卜的指 标将不会解决我们提到的学科差异性问题。这也不会成为是 困扰影响因子的一个难题。但我们希望它至少提供一个更好 的方法来评估我们的成果，将影响因子改造得更好一些。However, whether you are assessing journals or researchers, nothing beats reading the papers and formin

20、g your own opinion.然而，无论你是评估期刊编辑还是研究人员，更重要的是，通过阅读论文形成自己的观点。而不是影响因子什么的鬼东西。Nature,535,466,(28 July 2016)doi:10.1038/535466a 2. Nature 、Science 等最强声音加入 打击影响因子的行列近日，PLoS、eLife、EMBO Press、Science Journals 、 Springer Nature、the Royal Society 等多家主流由版集团的 高层人员共同合作，在预印本网站bioRxiv上刊登了抵制影响因子的文章。文章明确指生了影响因子对个体文章和

21、学者 学术水平评价过程中的不利影响，并建议所有期刊采用新的 评价体系引用分布 (Citation Distribution),以更加合理真实的反应个体的工作情况，避免影响因子在学术评估中的 不恰当使用。文以 Science、Nature、eLife和PLoS的11 个期刊为例，列由这11个期刊2013-2014年文章的引用分 布情况，然后与2015年期刊影响因子进行对比。结果发现，在这些期刊中大多数论文的引用次数都低于所在期刊的影响因子。Nature的影响因子为38.1，但是实际上却有多达 74.8%的文章引用次数低于其影响因子，相似的情况也发生 在Science和PLos中，造成这种现象由现

22、的原因是少数高 引文章的存在拉高了整体文章的影响因子。有人觉得这是站 着说话不腰疼：呵呵，Nature , Science这帮人居然有脸来 分析影响因子”大家快来看啦：PLoS , Science , Nature , EMBO四大贵族说它们觉得影响因子不好用啊喂有人为之欢呼雀跃，奔走相告：好棒耶，简直太及时了，我们得赶紧 支持这个啊。跟我一起正在发愁发论文的好基友有人则更 加理性从容：这无疑是替代一度有用无奈现如今被滥用的影 响因子的最佳选择当然不管面对多么严肃的事情，都始终少不了那些幽默派的身影。嗯，这是我今晚的思想盛宴，你们 要不要来一碗？”什么？神圣的影响因子说被践踏就被践踏？3. S

23、CI被卖第二天，美国微生物学会（ASM）宣称放弃影响 因子上周昨日SCI被237.3亿抛售在科研界的朋友圈阅 读达到近60万。可见大家对这次事情的重视程度。墙倒众 人推，SCI被卖第二天，美国微生物学会（ASM）官网最新 消息：ASM期刊总编和 ASM领导层决定，以后将不在 ASM 期刊网站上公布影响因子（IFs）。全文及其译文如下Manyscientists attempt to publish their work in a journal with the highest possible journal impact factor （IF）. Despite widespread co

24、ndemnation of the use of journal IFs to assess the significance of published work, these numbers continue to be widely misused in publication, hiring, funding, and promotion decisions .彳艮多科学家者日尝试着等他们的文章发表在具有高的影响影子的期刊上，尽管使用影 响因子来评估发表论文的重要性受到广泛的谴责，但影响因 子仍被广泛滥用于由版、求职、项目申请和职务晋升等等各 手中科研环节 .There are a nu

25、mber of problems with thisapproach. First of all, the journal IF is a journal-level metric, not an article-level metric, and its use to determine the impact of a single article is statistically flawed since citation distribution is skewed for all journals, with a very small number of articles drivin

26、g the vast majority of citations. 影响 因子这种方法有很多问题，首先，期刊的影响因子是期刊水 平的度量标准，而不是一篇文章水平的度量标准，将其用于 决定一篇文章的影响力是存在统计缺陷的。由于所有期刊的 引文是不均匀的，可能少数的文章高引推高了杂志的影响因 子。 Furthermore, impact does not equal importance or advancement to the field, and the pursuit of a high IF, whether at the article or journal level, may mi

27、sdirectresearch efforts away from more important priorities.止匕夕卜不论文章还是杂志，影响力也不等于领域的重要性或前沿性， 追求高影响因子会误导大众，我们需要关注的是研究成果而 不是关注其他更为重要的优先事项。The causes for theunhealthy obsession with IF are complex. High-IF journals limit the number of their publications to create an artificial scarcity and generate the

28、perception that exclusivity is a marker of quality. The relentless pursuit of high-IF publications has been detrimental for science.人们不理性的痴迷于影响因子的原因是复杂的。高影响因子的期刊限制了由版物的数量造成人为的稀缺性观念，通过限制发文量提 高杂志的质量。不懈追求高影响因子科学生版物是有害的。 This behavior is an example of the economic phenomenon known as the “tragedy of the

29、 commons ” , in which individuals engage in a behavior that benefits them individually at the expense of communal interests. 这一行为 在经济学中被称为“公地悲剧”。个人总是自发参与到那些有 利于自己但不利于社会大众的行为中去。Individualscientists receive disproportionate rewards for articles in high-IF journals, but science as a whole suffers from

30、a distorted value system, delayed communication of results as authors shop for the journal with the highest IF that will publish their work, and perverse incentives for sloppy or dishonest work.个别科学家因为在高影响因子杂志上发表文 章而获得不成比例的奖励回报，于是科学作为一个整体， 其价 值受到了一种扭曲，结果被高影响因子杂志延迟发表，甚至 导致了不正当或不诚实的工作的产生。Since manyinvestigators consider IFs in deciding where to submit their manuscripts, many journals list their IFs on their websites, and until now American Society for Microbiology (ASM) journals have been no e