SCI-An international stage of academic merit

The Science Citation Index (SCI) was introduced primarily as a method of information retrieval but has alsobeen used as an objective measure of the quality of an academic article. The SCI also provides the scientific communitywith a citations database indicating the number of cited references in indexed articles. In fact the impact factor is awidespread used and acknowledged source for judging the quality of a researcher. For several reasons, the SCI seems to bemore relevant. Because of this importance, there have been many pros and cons regarding the feasibility and potentialutility of the SCI as a mean of academic evaluation in the Chinese scientific community. Overall, China' s share in theworld scientific literature is much less than that of many other countries. Data on the observed citation impact of Chineseresearch in different fields, including medicine, show that the work done in China in general is not integrated well intointernational research. This article intended to introduce some basic aspects with respect to the SCI and to present apersonal view on its role as an international stage of academic merit.