Designing an inference engine for assessment of researchers’ maturity using rough set theory

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to design an expert system that gets data from researchers and determines their maturity level. This system can be used for determining researchers’ support programs as well as a tool for researchers in research-based organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This study focuses on designing the inference engine as a component of an expert system. To do so, rough set theory is used to design rule models. Various complete, discretizing and reduction algorithms are used in this paper, and different models were run.

Findings

The proposed inference engine has the validity of 99.8 per cent, and the most important attributes to determine the maturity level of researchers in this model are “commitment to research” and “attention to research plan timeline”.

Research limitations/implications

To accurately determine researchers’ maturity model, solely referring to documents and self-reports may reduce the validation. More validation could be reached through using assessment centers for determining capabilities of samples and observations in each maturity level.

Originality/value

The assessment system for the professional maturity of researchers is an appropriate tool for funders to support researchers. This system helps the funders to rank, validate and direct researchers. Furthermore, it is a valid criterion for researchers to evaluate and improve their abilities. There is not any expert system to assess the researches in literature, and all models, frameworks and software are conceptual or self-assessment.

Citation

Karimi, T., Sadeghi Moghadam, M.R. and Mardani, A. (2018), "Designing an inference engine for assessment of researchers’ maturity using rough set theory", Kybernetes, Vol. 47 No. 7, pp. 1435-1455. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-07-2017-0245