Since the invention of the science citation index in the 1960s, quantitative measuring of the performance of researchers has become ever more prevalent, controversial and influential. Six commentators tell Nature what changes might ensure that individuals are assessed more fairly.rnBasic research in scientometrics-the quantitative measurement and analysis of science-has boomed over the past few decades. This has led to a plethora of new measures and techniques (see page 864). Thanks in part to easy access to big, interdisciplinary publication and citation databases (such as Web of Science and Scopus), evaluative metrics can seem very easy to use. Because it is so easy to produce a number, people can be deluded into thinking that they have a thorough understanding of what those numbers mean. All too often, they don't know which database to use, how to clean raw data, which indicator to use or how to use it for the task at hand.
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机译：自从1960年代发明科学引文索引以来，对研究人员绩效的定量衡量变得越来越普遍，富争议性和影响力。六位评论员告诉《自然》杂志，什么变化可以确保对个人进行更公正的评估。在过去的几十年中，科学计量学的基础研究（科学的定量测量和分析）蓬勃发展。这导致了过多的新措施和新技术（请参见第864页）。部分由于易于访问大型，跨学科的出版物和引文数据库（例如Web of Science和Scopus），评估指标似乎非常易于使用。由于产生数字非常容易，因此人们可能会以为人们对这些数字的含义有透彻的了解而感到迷惑。很多时候，他们不知道要使用哪个数据库，如何清除原始数据，要使用哪个指标或如何将其用于手头的任务。
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