不久前，《美国新闻与世界报道》（U.S News & World Report）最新颁布的一项排名。在这份新一年度的全球最佳大学排行榜中，清华大学成功取代美国麻省理工，在计算机科学（Computer science）方面排名全球第一。

然而，对于这份排名，近日美国计算研究会(Computing Research Association)专门发布了声明，对此表示抗议，并要求全球计算机科研人员集体无视这项排名。

声明全文如下：

CRA Statement on US News and World Report Rankings of Computer Science Universities

To the Computing Research Community:

致计算研究社区：

The latest US News and World Report (USN&WR) ranking of Computer Science (CS) at global universities does a grave[1] disservice to USN&WR readers and to CS departments all over the world. Last week, we respectfully asked the ranking be withdrawn. Unfortunately USN&WR declined.

《美国新闻和全球报道》（USN&WR）最近的全球大学计算机科学排名对USN&WR读者及世界各地的计算机科学单位造成了恶劣影响。上周，我们诚意地请求他们撤销这个排名，但很不幸，USN&WR拒绝了这个请求。

[1]grave：seriously bad 严重的；重大的；严峻的

a grave situation

严峻的形势

The methodology used — rankings based on journal publications collected by Web of Science — ignores conference publications and as a consequence does not accurately reflect how research is disseminated[2] in the CS community or how faculty receive recognition or have impact. Furthermore, the list of venues is not public. So while some may debate the soundness of any bibliometric-based rankings, there will be no debate about the flaws in the rankings USN&WR has published; the methodology makes inferences from the wrong data without transparency and, consequently, it arrives at an absurd ranking.

在这个排名中，所使用的方法是基于Web of Science收集的期刊出版物（而忽略了会议出版物）来排名。这种方法并不能准确地反映CS社区的研究是如何传播的，以及研究人员如何得到认可或影响的。此外，出版物清单并没有公布，即使有些人质疑基于文献计量排名的合理性，但却无法争议USN&WR排名的缺陷。从不正确的数据来推断，而数据又不透明，所以这就是一个荒谬的排名。

[2]disseminate：to spread or give out something, especially news, information, ideas, etc., to a lot of people 散布，传播，宣传

One of the organization's aims is to disseminate information about the disease.

该组织的宗旨之一就是宣传关于这种疾病的知识。

Another important factor in USN&WR rankings is reputation. However, reputational rankings in a large, mostly disconnected community, arguably[3] are problematic. It is unreasonable to expect that departments half-way around the world will have anything close to an accurate assessment of each other, given that they are speaking a different language, have different value systems, different levels of resources, and different goals.

USN&WR排名中另外一项重要因素是“学术声誉”。但在一个体积巨大且大部分没有联系的社区里考虑学术声誉，可以说是非常有问题的。另外考虑到这个群体中人们语言不同，价值观念不同，资源水平不同，目标也不同，期望世界各地的研究单位之间有一个接近的准确“学术声誉”评估是不合理的。

[3]arguably：used when stating an opinion or belief that you think can be shown to be true 大概，可能

He is arguably the world's best football player.

他可能是世界上最好的足球运动员。

Anyone with knowledge of CS research will see these rankings for what they are — nonsense — and ignore them. But others may be seriously misled.

任何具有CS研究经历的人都会看到他们的排名简直是无稽之谈，而忽略它们。但是其他人可能会被严重误导。

CRA hosted a discussion which included Robert Morse, USN&WR lead on rankings, at Snowbird 2016, our biennial meeting. Among the many items discussed, there was a robust discussion of rankings using bibliometrics and the various issues involved. In particular, we outlined the problems with using a data source that does not index the conferences in which the most impactful and highly cited peer reviewed research publications appears.

2016年CRA曾在Snowbird举办了一个两年一次的研讨会，当时主导USN&WR排名工作的Rober Morse也曾参会。在所讨论的诸多项目中，我们对排名中使用文献计量及涉及的其他各种问题进行了认真的讨论。特别是，我们指出了使用不包括会议索引的数据源时会出现的问题，会议索引相比发表的论文有更大的影响和更高的引用率。

CRA offered to partner to create a ranking scheme that would be credible to the computing research community, but he declined to work with either CRA or the broader community.

On November 1st, after the global rankings were published, we contacted Morse pointing out the problems with the methodology used and asking that these Global Rankings based on flawed source data be withdrawn, but he did not respond.

在11月1日（全球排名出来后），我们联系了Morse并指出其所使用方法的问题，要求他们撤销这个基于有缺陷数据源进行的排名，但他没有回应。

We urge the community to ignore the USN&WR rankings of Computer Science.

我们敦促社区忽视USN&WR的这份计算机科学排名。

Sincerely,

Susan Davidson, Chair CRA Board of Directors, Weiss Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Andrew P. Bernat, CRA Executive Director
Carla Brodley, Dean, Northeastern University
Laura Haas, Dean, University of Massachusetts Amherst
H.V. Jagadish, Bernard A. Galler Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan
Kathryn S. McKinley, Google
Mario Nascimento, Chair and Professor, University of Alberta
Fred Schneider, Chair and Samuel B. Eckert Professor, Cornell University

翻译仅供参考：http://t.cn/Rj9BaAT