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SUMMARY:The Assessment of Science: the Relative Merits of Post-Publication
  Review\, the Impact Factor and the Number of Citations
DTSTART:20140311T101500
DTSTAMP:20260916T044012Z
UID:7bd36fa47f1200ddf5a1c65c11f167eea16a7a0e8957716201f7f167
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Adam Eyre-Walker\, University of Sussex\, Brighton (UK)\
 nBio: Adam Eyre-Walker was educated at Shrewsbury School\, where Darwin wa
 s a student\, Nottingham University and Edinburgh University\, where he di
 d his PhD with William G. Hill. He then did two post-doctoral research fel
 lowships at Rutgers University\, with Michael Bulmer and Brandom Gaut\, be
 fore returning to the UK as a Royal Society University Research Fellow at 
 the University of Sussex. He held his fellowship until 2004 when he became
  a Reader\, before being promoted to Professor in 2005.\nBIOENGINEERING SE
 MINAR\nThe assessment of scientific publications is an integral part of th
 e scientific process. I will present analyses of three methods of assessin
 g the merit of a scientific paper: subjective post-publication peer review
 \, the number of citations gained by a paper\, and the impact factor of th
 e journal in which the article was published. I will show that there are m
 oderate\, but statistically significant\, correlations between assessor sc
 ores\, when two assessors have rated the same paper\, and between assessor
  score and the number of citations a paper accrues. However\, assessor sco
 res are more strongly correlated to the impact factor of the journal in wh
 ich the paper is published than they are to each other or to the number of
  citations. This might be because assessors are overrating papers in high 
 impact journals. If we control for this potential bias\, we find that the 
 correlation between assessor scores and between assessor score and the num
 ber of citations is weak\, suggesting that scientists have little ability 
 to judge either the intrinsic merit of a paper or its likely impact. I als
 o show that the number of citations a paper receives is an extremely error
 -prone measure of scientific merit. Finally\, I will argue that the impact
  factor is likely to be a poor measure of merit\, since it depends on subj
 ective assessment. I conclude that the three measures of scientific merit 
 considered here are poor\; in particular subjective assessments are an err
 or-prone\, biased\, and expensive method by which to assess merit. I argue
  that the impact factor may be the most satisfactory of the methods we hav
 e considered\, since it is a form of pre-publication review. However\, I w
 ill emphasise that it is likely to be a very error-prone measure of merit 
 that is qualitative\, not quantitative.
LOCATION:SV1717A http://map.epfl.ch/?room=sv1717a
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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