Refrain from adopting the combination of citation and journal metrics to grade publications, as used in the Italian national research assessment exercise (VQR 2011---2014)

The prediction of the long-term impact of a scientific article is challenging task, addressed by the bibliometrician through resorting to a proxy whose reliability increases with the breadth of the citation window. In the national research assessment exercises using metrics the citation window is necessarily short, but in some cases is sufficient to advise the use of simple citations. For the Italian VQR 2011---2014, the choice was instead made...