Letter to Presidents and Representatives of Member Societies of ICIAM
Nr. 6 2008_06_10
Dear President, dear Representative of a member Society!
Todays Topics:
1) Release of the important document: "Citation
Statistics"
2) Check web site
1) Release of the important document: "Citation
Statistics"
On 11 June 2008 at
6 pm (EST) (e.g. Sydney)
4 pm (CST) (e.g. Beijing)
1.30 pm (IST) (e.g. New Dehli)
10 am (CEST) (e.g. Zurich)
4 am (EDT) (e.g. New York)
1 am (PDT) (e.g. LA)
the document "Citation Statistics", CitationStatistics-FINAL.PDF,
and a press release, Press release-jhe-replace.doc,
will be made public. (see attachments). Until that time both
documents are EMBARGOED.
What to do with these two documents will indicated below?
In 2007 the International mathematical Union, IMU, the
Institute of Mathematical Statistics, ISM, and ICIAM have
set up a committee on "Quantitative assessment of research"
that was asked to investigate various aspects of impact
factors and similar numerical values. It consisted of
- John Ewing (Providence, USA), chair, appointed by IMU
- Robert Adler (Haifa, Israel), appointed by IMS
- Peter Taylor (Melbourne, Australia), appointed by ICIAM.
See: /QAR/
The terms of reference given to the committee can be found at:
http://www.mathunion.org/o/Publications/2007/Charge-ComOnQuantAssessmRe…
The committee has addressed this charge, documented
and discussed many of the problems arising with the
use of such indicators in the report, and submitted
it to the Executive Committees of IMU, the ICIAM board
at its meeting in Vancouver on 12 April, and IMS.
The two EC and the ICIAM bard have endorsed the report
and the three institutions are making the report
"Citation Statistics" public on 11 June.
A PDF file of the report is included as an attachment
for your information. The report and the press release
can also be found at the following URL:
/QAR/
This report was triggered by numerous requests from
member countries, mathematical societies, important
mathematical institutions and individuals who
reported about the increasing misuse of impact
factors (and similarly simple indicators) that
are supposed to measure quality of research of
individuals, departments, or whole institutions.
ICIAM suggests that the readers of my presidential
letter not only read this document but also distribute
this report to administrators and decision-makers who are
concerned with the judgment of research quality of
individuals and institutions so that they are informed
about what the various impact factors measure and
what not, and what mathematicians and statisticians
have to say about them.
IMU, ICIAM and IMS have agreed that, in order to
assure as wide distribution as possible, journals,
newsletters and the like interested in publishing
this report will have the non-exclusive right to
publish the report in one of their issues. Please
make at least a link to the webpage
/QAR/
where the report and the press release can be found.
If you have an e-mail distribution list for your members,
please inform all your members. In addition, please
contact the newsletters/journals you are connected
with and suggest publication of the report "Citation
Statistics" and or the press release.
All 3 organizations, representing the world community
of pure, applied, and industrial mathematics and
statistics have the hope that the careful analysis
of the roles that impact factors play or should play
documented in this report will be considered by
decision-makers who are making use of such forms of
measurement.
IMU, ICIAM, and IMS are grateful to the three
authors for their extremely thoughtful analysis of
the issue and the tremendous efforts that went into
the preparation of this report.
2) Check web site
Check and update information of your society on our website
As many societies have presidents and officers whose term end at
the end of a year it would be good if you inform us on all the
changes which happened in your society. Please use this moment
to quickly check on our website whether the information displayed is still
correct. Please check not only the information on the
public website: /
but also on the restriceted area. You can access the restricted area as follows:
log-in: iciam-representative
password: zurich
You can download these things form the restriced area of the website:
/
You can access the restricted area as follows:
log-in: iciam-representative
password: zurich
Sincerely Yours. Rolf Jeltsch
President ICIAM