El Tribunal Supremo dictamina a favor de la evaluación del contenido de las publicaciones para valorar la actividad investigadora

Abstract

Scientific quality (even activity) valuation of a determinate person often is assessed depending on the impact factor of the journals where this person has published, taking into account, generally, the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) index and no other bibliometric indexes (not even those which measure the author’s bibliometric production according to his publication history). It is not surprising that this type of valuation of individual research activity has been object of a big amount of critics, because it does not seem that the journal impact factor may be considered as a useful index to assess the individual activity, amen of the fact that many journals with impact factor (JCR) publish their articles in English. Besides, publishing in impact journals may require the pay of a determinate amount of money, even some journals (called predator journals) publish articles without assessing them if authors pay for the editorial process. \n \nAs the National Commission for Assessing the Research Activity, which evaluates the Research activity of the Spanish university teachers uses this assessment criteria, a denunciation was made and it arrived until the Supreme Court, which ruled that the assessment of scientific works must be done according to its contribution to the knowledge progress to its innovation and creative, not depending on the journal it has been published. I wish this will be useful for the establishment of other assessment criteria which were fairer and more reliable.