Value of original articles, review papers, letter to editors, commentaries, in academia?
I have recently been invited to serve as a consultant to the committee of the research dean to the medical school of a top ranked university in Asia. Basically I review guidelines regarding academic promotions, money allocations, salaries, post-graduate students and many related areas.
What really stood out to me was that the university itself had a policy in considering promotions, where they considered original articles, meta-analysis, review papers, letters to editors and commentaries as 'one unit' of a research output, assuming it is published in a reputable journal. For promotion considerations, say from post doc to assistant professor, they require a minimum of 10 units as a first author/inventor. I find this to be quite silly as one candidate with 10 original papers is clearly not the same as another with 2 original papers and 8 reviews + commentaries + letters, yet alone considering the quality of the papers and where it is published.
After several discussions, the university is still insistent in using such a point system, but has allowed me to propose allocating different weights rather than treating them as one unit. I would like to propose the following, but wanted to hear feedback:
Original paper (IF > 10) - 1 unit
Original paper (IF < 10) - 0.8 units
Meta-review/systematic analysis - 0.8 units
Review paper - 0.3 units
Letter-to-editor/Commentary - 0.1 units