Metrics to evaluate research performance in academic institutions: A critique of ERA 2010 as applied in forestry and the indirect H2 index as a possible alternative

Excellence for Research in Australia (ERA) is an attempt by the Australian Research Council to rate Australian universities on a 5-point scale within 180 Fields of Research using metrics and peer evaluation by an evaluation committee. Some of the bibliometric data contributing to this ranking suffer statistical issues associated with skewed distributions. Other data are standardised year-by-year, placing undue emphasis on the most recent publications which may not yet have reliable citation patterns. The bibliometric data offered to the evaluation committees is extensive, but lacks effective syntheses such as the h-index and its variants. The indirect H2 index is objective, can be computed automatically and efficiently, is resistant to manipulation, and a good indicator of impact to assist the ERA evaluation committees and to similar evaluations internationally.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, appendice

Metric-based vs peer-reviewed evaluation of a research output: Lesson learnt from UK’s national research assessment exercise

Purpose There is a general inquisition regarding the monetary value of a research output, as a substantial amount of funding in modern academia is essentially awarded to good research presented in the form of journal articles, conferences papers, performances, compositions, exhibitions, books and book chapters etc., which, eventually leads to another question if the value varies across different disciplines. Answers to these questions will not only assist academics and researchers, but will also help higher education institutions (HEIs) make informed decisions in their administrative and research policies. Design and methodology To examine both the questions, we applied the United Kingdom’s recently concluded national research assessment exercise known as the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 as a case study. All the data for this study is sourced from the openly available publications which arose from the digital repositories of REF’s results and HEFCE’s funding allocations. Findings A world leading output earns between £7504 and £14,639 per year within the REF cycle, whereas an internationally excellent output earns between £1876 and £3659, varying according to their area of research. Secondly, an investigation into the impact rating of 25315 journal articles submitted in five areas of research by UK HEIs and their awarded funding revealed a linear relationship between the percentage of quartile-one journal publications and percentage of 4* outputs in Clinical Medicine, Physics and Psychology/Psychiatry/Neuroscience UoAs, and no relationship was found in the Classics and Anthropology/Development Studies UoAs, due to the fact that most publications in the latter two disciplines are not journal articles. Practical implications The findings provide an indication of the monetary value of a research output, from the perspectives of government funding for research, and also what makes a good output, i.e. whether a relationship exists between good quality output and the source of its publication. The findings may also influence future REF submission strategies in HEIs and ascertain that the impact rating of the journals is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of research in every discipline, and this may have a significant influence on the future of scholarly communications in general. Originality According to the author’s knowledge, this is the first time an investigation has estimated the monetary value of a good research output

The e-Index, Complementing the h-Index for Excess Citations

BACKGROUND: The h-index has already been used by major citation databases to evaluate the academic performance of individual scientists. Although effective and simple, the h-index suffers from some drawbacks that limit its use in accurately and fairly comparing the scientific output of different researchers. These drawbacks include information loss and low resolution: the former refers to the fact that in addition to h(2) citations for papers in the h-core, excess citations are completely ignored, whereas the latter means that it is common for a group of researchers to have an identical h-index. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To solve these problems, I here propose the e-index, where e(2) represents the ignored excess citations, in addition to the h(2) citations for h-core papers. Citation information can be completely depicted by using the h-index together with the e-index, which are independent of each other. Some other h-type indices, such as a and R, are h-dependent, have information redundancy with h, and therefore, when used together with h, mask the real differences in excess citations of different researchers. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although simple, the e-index is a necessary h-index complement, especially for evaluating highly cited scientists or for precisely comparing the scientific output of a group of scientists having an identical h-index

Assessment of Forest Biomass and Carbon Stocks at Stand Level Using Site-Specific Primary Data to Support Forest Management

To quantify and map woody biomass (WB) and forest carbon (C) stocks, several models were developed. They differ in terms of scale of application, details related to the input data required and outputs provided. Local Authorities, such as Mountain Communities, can be supported in sustainable forest planning and management by providing specific models in which the reference unit is the same as the one reported in the Forest Management Plans (FMP), i.e. the forest stand. In the Lombardy Region (Northern Italy), a few studies were performed to assess WB and forest C stocks, and they were generally based on data coming from regional\u2014or national\u2014forest inventories and remote sensing, without taking into account data collected in the FMPs. For this study, the first version of the stand-level model \u201cWOody biomass and Carbon ASsessment\u201d (WOCAS) for WB and C stocks calculation was improved into a second version (WOCAS v2) and preliminary results about its first application to 2019 forest stands of Valle Camonica District (Lombardy Region) are presented. Since the model WOCAS uses the growing stock as the main driver for the calculation, it can be applied in any other forest area where the same input data are available

Spiral and Interlocking Grain in Eucalyptus Dunnii

Spiral grain in 181 trees from a 9-year-old plantation-grown Eucalyptus dunnii was normally distributed with mean 0.33 degrees (to the left) and standard deviation 1.7 degrees, and was affected by family and by crown asymmetry. Interlocking grain was common, exhibiting a mean amplitude of 3.4 degrees (standard deviation 1.5 degrees) and a mean wavelength of 39 mm (standard deviation 12 mm). The relatively large amplitude of interlocking grain means that most trees will have spiral grain that alternates between left and right during each year. The wavelength of interlocking grain is influenced by tree size, but amplitude of interlocking is under genetic control. Both spiral grain and the amplitude of any interlocking were heritable (h2 = 0.99 and 0.63 respectively)

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table

Species-specific, pan-European diameter increment models based on data of 2.3 million trees

ResearchBackground: Over the last decades, many forest simulators have been developed for the forests of individual European countries. The underlying growth models are usually based on national datasets of varying size, obtained from National Forest Inventories or from long-term research plots. Many of these models include country- and location-specific predictors, such as site quality indices that may aggregate climate, soil properties and topography effects. Consequently, it is not sensible to compare such models among countries, and it is often impossible to apply models outside the region or country they were developed for. However, there is a clear need for more generically applicable but still locally accurate and climate sensitive simulators at the European scale, which requires the development of models that are applicable across the European continent. The purpose of this study is to develop tree diameter increment models that are applicable at the European scale, but still locally accurate. We compiled and used a dataset of diameter increment observations of over 2.3 million trees from 10 National Forest Inventories in Europe and a set of 99 potential explanatory variables covering forest structure, weather, climate, soil and nutrient deposition. Results: Diameter increment models are presented for 20 species/species groups. Selection of explanatory variables was done using a combination of forward and backward selection methods. The explained variance ranged from 10% to 53% depending on the species. Variables related to forest structure (basal area of the stand and relative size of the tree) contributed most to the explained variance, but environmental variables were important to account for spatial patterns. The type of environmental variables included differed greatly among species. Conclusions: The presented diameter increment models are the first of their kind that are applicable at the European scale. This is an important step towards the development of a new generation of forest development simulators that can be applied at the European scale, but that are sensitive to variations in growing conditions and applicable to a wider range of management systems than before. This allows European scale but detailed analyses concerning topics like CO2 sequestration, wood mobilisation, long term impact of management, etcinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio