Objective reviews are a sine qua non condition for modern organisation of scientific research, based on clear principles. That’s why we are creating a system that aims to limit the negative phenomena associated with evaluations, such as cognitive errors resulting from unknowingly used, simplified rules of inference.
Before starting work on the system, researchers from OPI analyzed literature on errors in the evaluation procedures, which consist of low unanimity of reviewers, cognitive bias or favouring research with positive implications. They also researched the methods of selection of reviewers and reviewing methods used in the assessment of applications for grants, inter alia, at the European Research Council and the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the best scientific journals, including “Science” and “Nature”.
In addition to tens of thousands of scientists, both reviewing grant applications as well as applying for grants, we have sent a survey with questions about the course of reviewing process in Poland. Only 35% of grant applicants identified it as a fair and objective, among the grant reviewers themselves this rating was only slightly higher. Almost all of the respondents answered that in the process of applying for grants, scientific reviews are needed. 80 % of them think also that in the allocation of grants, decision-makers take into account the opinions of reviewers. The conducted study therefore confirmed the need to improve the review system.
The dynamic base being created in OPI collects and provides information about the potential reviewers. It also proposes a rating of specific reviewers for a particular article or research proposal. Three basic functionalities of the system are a ranking of reviewers (generating a listing of the most recommended reviewers), document analysis (extracting keywords from the text) and databases (browsing by fields of science, names, keywords, publications, sources).
The system has been implemented by the National Centre for Research and Development.
More information about the project and the support system for the selection of reviewers can be found in the following two volumes, published under the editor PhD Jarosław ProtasiewiczProcedures of review and reviewer selection .
Project title: Support system for the selection of reviewers
Website:https://recenzenci.opi.org.pl
Implemented by:Laboratory of Intelligent Information Systems
EU participation: subproject 5.1 of the systemic project “Support for the management of research works and their results” under Priority axis I, Action 1.1, Measure 1.1.3 of the Operational Programme Innovative Economy 2007-2013.
A semantic Web search engine as an alternative to Google. Work on the project improving quality of content search on the web is ongoing.
The new search engine is designed to meet the need for information on the web that are the best match to the search query submitted Such a tool takes into account not popularity, but reliability and quality of information found on the Internet. Each query is analyzed in terms of meanings it can relate to. This allows the user to easily and quickly obtain truly relevant content. It streamlines the process for reviewing and processing the information.