Over the past decades, the competition for academic resources has gradually intensified, and worsened with the current financial crisis. To optimize the resource allocation, individualized assessment of research results is being actively studied but the current indices, such as the number of papers, the number of citations, the h-factor and its variants have limitations, especially their inability of determining co-authors’ credit shares fairly. Here we establish an axiomatic system and quantify co-authors’ relative contributions. Our methodology avoids subjective assignment of co-authors’ credits using the inflated, fractional or harmonic methods, and provides a quantitative tool for scientific management such as funding and tenure decisions. Click here for full article….
English multiple-choice examinations become increasingly popular in China. However, there exists a substantial concern that such examinations are subject to randomness and lack of reliability. In this paper, three probabilistic models are constructed to characterize English multiple-choice questions in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) administrated by Educational Testing Service (ETS), USA. The relationship between the examination score and the student’s proficiency is quantified and analyzed. According to the theoretical model, it is computed that the standard deviation of the TOEFL score must be 13.96, very consistent to the real value, which is 14 as reported by ETS. Our results help understand the rationale/validity of the TOEFL and provide guidelines for design of similar tests. Click here for full article….
A method for the objective examination design is developed for teaching of the graduate course “Digital Picture Processing”. In this method, questions are made to cover the course material in a balanced manner, and the number of the questions are determined according to an entropy-based criterion – the uncertainty reducibility. It is concluded that the objective examination method is accurate, reliable, cost-effective, and widely applicable for teaching at the graduate level. Click here for full article…. (Chinese)