The quantity and quality of papers published by scientists in China in journals included in SCI are increasing rapidly. For example, the number of papers with high "impact factors" increased from 25 in 1993 to 223 in 2003.
However, it is an indisputable fact that SCI has been alienated in China. First of all, quantity has become the most important index to measure scientific research, which is used to rank universities, scientific research units and even scientists. The number of papers is closely related to personal treatment, reward, fund allocation and professional title evaluation, and even graduate students have rigid rules on SCI papers.
Secondly, in order to improve the ranking, universities and scientific research institutions reward SCI papers, ranging from several thousand yuan to tens of thousands of yuan. Paper has become a valuable commodity.
Thirdly, due to the one-sided orientation of the number of papers, some scientists choose papers that are easy to be included in SCI for research, publish the same research repeatedly or split it up, and some cheat and "hitchhike" other scientists. Magazines included in domestic SCI are also very popular, and Luoyang paper is expensive. SCI has blown up an "academic bubble".
According to the website "New Threads", which exposes the abnormal phenomenon in China academic circles, more than 30 papers of/kloc-0 by Zheng Yueqing, a chemistry professor at Ningbo University, were included in SCI. 200 1 year, his SCI papers rank first in chemistry in China. In 2004, 24 papers were published in foreign journals included in SCI.
According to Ningbo University's policy of rewarding 7,000 yuan for each SCI paper, Professor Zheng Can received an extra bonus of 1.68 million yuan. Professor Zheng is not the only SCI master in China.
Fourthly, in the "Great Leap Forward" of China's scientific papers, the improvement of paper quality can't keep up with the increase of paper quantity. The unique feature of SCI database invented by Dr. eugene garfield, a scientific literature expert, is that it uses "impact factor" to measure the level of journals included in SCI, and the "impact factor" of journals is determined by the citation rate of published papers.
Most of Professor Zheng's papers mentioned above were published in some foreign magazines with low "impact factors". For example, he has published 39 papers in a chemical magazine in Germany for three consecutive years, with a maximum of six papers published in one issue. The "impact factor" of this journal is only 0.3, which means that the average citation rate of each paper in this journal is only 0.3 times (including self-citation, false citation and false citation! )。 Some people call this kind of magazines "junk magazines" (are those with an impact factor below 0.3 "junk magazines"? )。 According to the latest statistics of SCI (10.3, 2005), although the total number of papers published in China from 2000 to 2004 was 14, and the total number of citations was the eighth in the world, the average number of citations per paper was only 3.35, ranking1among 146 countries.
The results show that the average citation rate of China scientists' papers is lower than the world average in 22 fields. This, of course, shows the gap of science in China, and the status of science in China in the world is far less important than its quantity shows.
From another perspective, there are more "junk papers" and even "junk scientists", and scholars are not only wasting their lives, but also wasting valuable scientific research resources of the country and even the world. Therefore, they get material rewards, which makes the country and taxpayers suffer double losses.
Fifthly, the paper "Irrigation" will have a negative impact on the reputation of China science in the world. Fang, the host of New Threads, said that some foreign scientists refused to review China's paper after learning that China scientists could get bonuses for publishing their papers. When Martin Bloom, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Physical Society, visited China not long ago, he even directly criticized the decline in the quality of China's papers.
According to the magazine, the number of papers from China has greatly increased in the past decade, but the quality is declining.
The above criticism of SCI has been recognized by the scientific community in China, including Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education and China Academy of Engineering. Even issued a document requesting to cancel the ranking according to the number of SCI papers. However, it is still regarded as an important "yardstick" to measure universities and scientific research institutions in China. A university in China judged the rankings of Tsinghua and Peking University, two famous universities in China, in the world universities according to the indexes including the number of SCI papers.
To get rid of the SCI cycle, the author suggests that China Institute of Science and Technology Information publish the statistical data of China's scientific papers every year, and rank the universities, research institutes and scientists who churn out "junk papers". In this way, even if the state can't collect fines from these institutions and individuals according to the number of "junk papers" for a while to make up for the waste of scientific research resources and the loss of credibility, at least they can stop their evil deeds of asking for bonuses. The question is how to determine the standard of "junk papers"?
The winner is a China scholar who is engaged in academic research locally.
At the 2005 annual meeting of China Graduate School Dean Association held at Fudan University, Xu Zhihong, the president of Peking University, said in his speech that in the long run, China's existing postgraduate entrance examination system similar to the national college entrance examination should be abolished. The headmaster said that in teaching, he found that some students with good test scores did not show strong ability in practice. China's postgraduate education trains high-level innovative talents, and the traditional examination system is still adopted, which may not be able to select creative outstanding students.
According to Xinmin Evening News, Xu Zhihong believes that it is a direction of postgraduate enrollment reform to learn from the experience of foreign world-class universities and make a final decision on admission by a panel of experts composed of professors through interviews, which is helpful for colleges and universities to assess students' comprehensive quality. In Peking University, last year's postgraduate enrollment reform has been this trend. In some colleges, several students who won the first place in the entrance examination were not admitted in the end.
When talking about the problems existing in the current postgraduate education, Xu Zhihong called for vigorously strengthening the construction of postgraduate "academic ethics". He said that in recent years, even in Peking University, there have been many plagiarism phenomena of graduate students' papers, especially liberal arts graduate students.
When asked, "What does Peking University think of postgraduate fees?" He replied that Peking University is working out a postgraduate fee plan. One principle is that school fees will not reduce the investment in graduate students, but will increase the corresponding funds. Postgraduate entrance examination fees can not simply be regarded as increasing the burden on students, and the money collected by the school will be invested in students. After the funds for postgraduate education are sufficient, some top academic students will get more rewards, thus increasing their income.