Administrators are using such measures to assess the productivity of those they hire and fund, and track the downstream impact of the research and development projects they underwrite, with little regard for the limitations of such indices. In countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Italy, research-assessment exercises are inexorably creating a culture of quantification and accountability, in which citation data play an increasingly important role.
问题不仅在于学术界。管理人员用这些指标评估他们聘用和给予资金支持的人的生产率，追踪他们所承担的研发项目的下游影响，丝毫不关注这些指标的局限性。在英国、澳大利亚、德国和意大利等国家，研究评估工作正在无情地创造一种资格和问责文化，引用数据的重要性日益增加。