Source of this article: Research Group of "Research on the Development and Evaluation of Academic Talents in Chinese Universities (CUSS)".
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The research report on the peer evaluation of professional titles in Chinese universities was released
There has been a significant increase in the number of universities entrusting third-party evaluations
A few days ago, the Talent Development Committee of the Chinese Society for Education Development Strategy and China Education Online Academic Bridge jointly released the "Research Report on Small Peer Evaluation of Professional Titles in Chinese Universities (2023)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). According to the report, in recent years, the number of universities that have entrusted third-party institutions to carry out academic evaluation has increased significantly, and the implementation of classified evaluation and more diversified representative evaluation is the key measure of "breaking the five only and setting new standards" in the evaluation of college titles. Industry insiders commented that the report shows and analyzes the evaluation of university titles from the perspective of big data, and explores the real situation and development trend of independent evaluation and small peer evaluation by third-party institutions, which has certain reference value for the evaluation of professional titles in Chinese universities.
The report was written by the research group of "Research on the Development and Evaluation of Academic Talents in Chinese Universities (CUSS)". The analysis data of the report includes 13,462 teachers and other academic talents from 200 colleges and universities across the country in 2023, covering 49,194 review opinions from 20,111 small peer experts.
Professor Wang Yunhai, chief expert of the research group and professor of the Center for Education and Open Economy of the University of International Business and Economics, said that in recent years, colleges and universities have continued to promote the reform of the talent evaluation system with the breakthrough of "breaking the five onlys", and have achieved good results. The Ministry of Education recently pointed out that it is necessary to further improve the talent evaluation mechanism, make good use of the "baton" of talent evaluation, ensure that talents are selected more accurately and used better, give full play to the role of the academic community in talent and academic evaluation, and let "people who understand" choose "the right people". On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the 2023 review data, the report adds a questionnaire analysis of 2,678 small peer review experts and 124 universities submitted for review, hoping to help universities find "experts who understand" and achieve "good review".
According to the report, the number of universities that entrust third-party institutions to carry out academic evaluation has increased significantly. In November 2018, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on Carrying out the Special Action to Clean Up the "Only Papers, Only Hats, Only Professional Titles, Only Academic Qualifications, and Only Awards" (hereinafter referred to as "Breaking the Five Onlys"), starting the reform of China's higher education. In the five years since the implementation of the "Breaking Five Onlys", the number of colleges and universities, participating teachers, external review experts, and participating opinions that have begun to entrust third-party institutions to carry out independent small peer review has increased by 1233%, 2348%, 1004%, and 2486% respectively, and the growth trend is very significant. It fully illustrates the great efforts to promote the reform of "breaking the five onlys" in the evaluation of professional titles in colleges and universities, and entrusting third-party institutions to carry out academic evaluation and independent evaluation has become one of the important measures for many universities, especially double first-class universities, to carry out the reform of the talent evaluation system.
The report points out that finding "experts who understand" is the essential demand of universities to entrust third-party institutions to conduct external audits. The research group conducted a survey on the main reasons for universities to entrust external review, and the survey results showed that "the review process is more confidential and fair", "the implementation of reform requirements such as classification + small peer evaluation", "reducing the contradiction of the review, reducing the interference of the review" and "improving the quality and scientificity of the review" are the four main reasons, accounting for 70% of the total. As we all know, finding "experts who understand" is an important condition for achieving the above four goals, and accurate and efficient matching of review experts must rely on a massive review expert database, but in reality, it is very difficult for universities to establish a review expert database alone. The number of global review experts built by Academic Bridge has exceeded 500,000, which is an important foundation and guarantee to help universities achieve accurate matching of experts.
The report found that the implementation of classified evaluation and more diversified evaluation of representative works is the key measure of "breaking the five only". According to the survey data, "richer classification of representative achievements" and "more diverse classification of personnel and achievements" are highly recognized among universities, accounting for 74% and 72% respectively, and universities generally tend to consider teachers' achievements and contributions more comprehensively and avoid simple classification models. The research team randomly selected the types of 1603 representative results submitted by 245 participants from two universities for sampling analysis. One of them is the original 985 universities, 98 participants, and 412 representative achievements. One is the original 211 universities, with 147 participants and 1,191 representative achievements. The statistics show that the representative types of achievements submitted for review by university titles show a trend of academic papers as the main body and other achievements as diversified development. Papers accounted for 53% of the total achievements, projects, scientific research awards and research reports accounted for 12%, 9% and 6% respectively, and teaching awards and mentoring students accounted for 6% and 2% respectively.
The report found that the way universities use academic review opinions has a significant impact on the evaluation results. When dealing with the academic review opinions of the external review of professional titles, colleges and universities generally adopt three main methods: the one-vote veto system (if the number of expert review conclusions does not reach the requirements of the university, it will not be at the meeting), the comprehensive evaluation system (the expert review conclusion is used as an important reference and is comprehensively determined by the university review committee) and the scoring system (the expert review conclusion reaches the specified score and can be submitted to the meeting). Among them, 44% of the universities adopted the one-vote veto system, accounting for the highest proportion, the comprehensive evaluation system accounted for 32%, and the point system accounted for 24%. Colleges and universities may use academic review opinions differently, and the promotion results of the assessee may also be different.
The report believes that a good review mechanism is an important guarantee to ensure the quality of the review. A good review mechanism should fully consider the requirements of the submitting universities, comprehensively analyze the various types of submitters and their representative achievements, and accurately select and match small peer experts in the same research field. At the same time, it is necessary to design a scientific and reasonable review opinion form and review options, improve the diversified classification of representative results, refine the use of expert external review opinions, and improve the review efficiency on the basis of confidentiality and fairness. To promote and realize the above work, professional third-party institutions provide more scientific, accurate and efficient professional services for the talent development and evaluation reform of colleges and universities.
The report reminds that there are still some problems in the current academic talent evaluation mechanism. Among them, universities and experts paid the most attention to "only focusing on scientific research and ignoring teaching and social services", followed by "single evaluation criteria" and "excessive emphasis on the number of papers and impact factors". In addition, there are three problems: "the effect of 'breaking the five only' is not obvious", "the talent classification standard is not scientific" and "the evaluation results are inconsistent with the actual contribution". The above situation shows that the current evaluation mechanism of academic talents in colleges and universities is still relatively simple, and the comprehensiveness, objectivity, fairness and scientificity of evaluation need to be improved.
Qin Guanying, an expert of the research group and associate researcher of the Education and Open Economy Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics, introduced that in the future, the research group will continue to focus on the research on the development and evaluation of academic talents in Chinese universities, continue to track and mine the data of front-line teachers, sort out and collect classic cases of the development of university teachers, and strive to comprehensively and accurately reflect the development status and needs of university teachers, provide decision-making basis for the integrated promotion of the strategy of strengthening the country with educational science and technology talents, and help the university faculty team achieve high-quality development.