On optimising the solution for evaluation of scientific quality in Polish higher education system using a 2D cutting problem representation

Abstract

This paper discusses the problem of optimising the solution to find the possibly the best estimate of the value of C1 criterion in the evaluation process of scientific quality in higher education in Poland, which has been exercised by its author during the evaluation of Polish universities in 2022 as a vice dean for scientific evaluation and teaching quality at his faculty. The second edition of evaluation in Poland is expected to start in 2026, making this task an interesting problem, again. On the basis of the approach described in the paper, it was possible to ensure continuous monitoring and estimation of the effectiveness of the publication policy to make decisions along the way. An adopted strategy used a simple formulation of the problem, allowing one to obtain the close-to-optimal solution in a matter of seconds, in comparison with a tedious computational campaign to adopt, when presenting the precise value for C1 criterion, actually disabling not only the on-demand monitoring capacity, but also making alteration of the result in a-close-to-online manner virtually impossible. The paper actually deploys a 2D cutting problem in strip tasks solver to mimic the steps to be taken to pursue with the scientific evaluation process.