Rational Use of Science Citation Index for Evaluating the Academic Performance of an Individual

Among the various data provided by Science Citation Index which are useful for evaluating the academic performance of an individual,i.e.the number of documents embodied in the database,impact factor of the periodicals in which the documents were published as well as the times cited for documents,the last two seem to be more important than the first one.However,these valuable data are still insufficient to evaluate the academic performance of an individual.There is little comparability among scientific papers in different disciplines,It is not unusual to find that a paper appearing earlier with high originality receives less citation while some others following later with less originality receive yet more citations.Thus,peers review is still necessary to make more reliable evaluation.