Editorial

Quantity vs Quality

Indicators, impact factors and rankings are suitable instruments to weight the quality of scientific, educational and publishing institutions. This relevant information, determined by specialized companies and institutions, allows to know how good you are doing on one hand, and it points out your weaknesses, on the other hand.

A big effort shall be done by a Latin American University in order to be in the top 200 of the world. It is a success when a researcher can publish a paper in a high impact factor journal. It is also important when a university is the first of a country. Under these conditions, it is more likely to obtain higher resources from the government and other funding institutions. Nevertheless, it is well known that this has a high price: significant investments in science and technology, qualified professors and researchers, high standing facilities and laboratories, and the required dedication of the involved personnel.

Several drawbacks have been pointed out in regard to the way these indicators are obtained. As an example, regarding the h-index of a researcher, some communications have revealed how weak it could be. In addition, there are some well-established tricks to improve it. Unfortunately in some cases economic incentives such as researcher's salary, ranking or project funding, among others, are decided as a function of this kind of indicators. This promotes the preference of quantity instead of quality. Authors should always realize that a paper with high number of citations is a proof of the excellence of the work, and of the research group and institution behind it.

This editorial claims for the importance of publishing high quality contributions with a significant impact. These are substantially better for the researcher, the journal, the institution and the country. The atomization of a good piece of work into a number of papers could give you more incentives, also they can improve the above mentioned indicators, but it is not well seen by the scientific community.

John R. Agudelo

Editor Energy Section

Revista Facultad de Ingeniería

Universidad de Antioquia