User:JoelleJay/NPROF and SIGCOV

This essay is applicable to researchers in many, but not all, hard science fields. It may not be applicable to all academics in social sciences, humanities, math, or CS.

NPROF utilizes a distinct application of SIGCOV that requires a lot more nuanced understanding and effort to demonstrate (even when abundant in free online English sources) than the form of SIGCOV most people are familiar with. Essentially, SIGCOV of a notable professor comprises in-depth discussions of specifically his or her research in scholarly review articles by independent researchers. Some of this notability would be achieved via the BASIC criteria, with numerous independent descriptions of research directly attributed in prose to a person; these aren't really SIGCOV of the subject but also aren't trivial and can be combined into SIGCOV. An example of this from a review I happen to have open right now because it's in my dissertation is A recent study has demonstrated that VPS35 affects this mechanism of Mfn2 regulation, most probably by controlling the trafficking of the E3 ubiquitin ligase, MUL1, to the mitochondrial membrane.64 Tang et al. have shown that VPS35-depletion in mouse dopamine neurons induces a PD-like condition, which presents with α-synuclein deposition, fragmented mitochondria and cell death.64 In this scenario, VPS35 interacts with MUL1 and sequesters it in the cytoplasm; the release of MUL1 from this interaction is thought to facilitate its transport to the mitochondrial membrane, where it ubiquitinates Mfn2 and induces the latter's proteasomal degradation64 (Figure 3). Upon VPS35 dysfunction, MUL1 is more freely available at the mitochondrial membrane, leading to enhanced Mfn2 degradation, fewer fusion events and thus fragmented mitochondrial morphology.

This would constitute non-trivial coverage of Tang's research's impact on the field, but since it is an academic article pronouns and phrases like "he found" or "Tang's study demonstrated" are extremely scarce and instead are implied by the lengthy description of and repeated references to his paper. It's also valid to evaluate Tang's paper as equally (or more) attributable to his PI/mentor, whom any academic reading the review discussion would understand is the person principally responsible for the research. By itself, it definitely wouldn't count much towards even BASIC for Tang (especially since he wasn't an independent researcher at this point; there's no way he'd have enough such descriptions covering enough different papers to meet BASIC), but by the time someone is a distinguished professor it's expected there would be multiple such mentions of their early first-author papers and dozens or even hundreds of their senior-author papers (which are weighted more heavily). A summary of someone's paper, published by a separate journal or covered by the media, can also contribute to BASIC...but again, a large number of these would be necessary to give the subject direct SIGCOV, especially when there are multiple authors. Furthermore, it is imperative that all of this coverage is actually sufficiently independent of the subject, and identifying independence between researchers in the same field can be onerous. The truly GNG-equivalent coverage of professors arises from more direct evaluations of their overall leadership in a field. Reviews examining the results of multiple studies attributed to the subject would fall in this category, e.g., the extensive coverage of Tilman Pfau's research in this article and festschrift honoring the subject's career.

However, the community has decided it would be a nightmare mandating editors wade through literal thousands of journal citations to find this coverage, especially when it's difficult to even recognize it in the mass of technical and often field-specific standards for describing others' research (for example, in the 1300-word article dedicated to Pfau's research, his name is mentioned just once; in the few other instances where a human action is even passively referred to, the authors use "the Stuttgart group"). So instead, we "presume" this academic SIGCOV exists for people who, e.g., have well above the average number of citations in their specialty, or have been recognized by major academic societies for the totality of their research. Yes, this is similar to how other SNGs "presume" SIGCOV, but the practical effect of requiring editors directly demonstrate GNG is so, so much more difficult and involved for academics than any other discipline that very few biographies would be written on decidedly encyclopedic subjects.