Editorial

The first paper in this issue of the Journal of Classification by Fionn Murtagh, Michael Orlov, and Boris Mirkin addresses the ever tricky issue of evaluating the quality of research produced by individuals. The approach by Murtagh and coauthors avoids many of the issues that are leveled against common metrics of productivity (like impact factor for instance, see Brumback, 2009; Brischoux and Cook, 2009; Rossner, Epps, and Hill, 2007) by taking a more holistic approach to assessing a researcher’s contributions. Personally, I believe that this is one of first efforts of what promises to be many forays into taking a broad approach at tackling the issue of the contribution(s) of an individual researcher.