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The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates different uses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) in national journal rankings and discusses the merits of supplementing metrics with expert assessment. Our focus is national journal rankings used as evidence to support decisions about the distribution of institutional funding or career advancement. The seven countries under comparison are China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Turkey—and the region of Flanders in Belgium. With the exception of Italy, top‐tier journals used in national rankings include those classified at the highest level, or according to tier, or points implemented. A total of 3,565 (75.8%) out of 4,701 unique top‐tier journals were identified as having a JIF, with 55.7% belonging to the first Journal Impact Factor quartile. Journal rankings in China, Flanders, Poland, and Turkey classify journals with a JIF as being top‐tier, but only when they are in the first quartile of the Average Journal Impact Factor Percentile. Journal rankings that result from expert assessment in Denmark, Finland, and Norway regularly classify journals as top‐tier outside the first quartile, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. We conclude that experts, when tasked with metric‐informed journal rankings, take into account quality dimensions that are not covered by JIFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The travel restriction leads to the enormous economic loss to the tourism industry. In this paper, the economic loss and the environmental gains (e.g., water and energy resources) from COVID-19 impact on China's tourism industry are estimated based on environmentally extended multiple regional input-output model. Results indicate that the China's tourism consumption loss triggered 921 billion US$ output loss via supply chain in 2020, which account for 7 % of GDP in 2019. Additionally, the economic loss further ripples tourism water footprint conservation of 10 billion m3 (equal to the annual water consumption of Poland) and tourism energy footprint conservation of 116 million tce (equal to the annual energy consumption of Australia). Findings reveal that regions with large tourism economic losses are not completely consistent with the regions with significant relief of water and energy pressures. Water pressure in Xinjiang (Northwest) and energy pressure in Hainan (South) have been alleviated due to reduced tourism consumption along the Southeast coast. These knock-on effects highlight a deeper internal link between the economy and the environment. The development of tourism in the post-COVID-19 era needs to reduce the direct water and energy footprint of local area by applying advanced water-saving and energy-saving technologies. • China's tourism output loss caused by COVID-19 accounts for 7 % of GDP in 2019. • 10 billion m3 of water saving equals to the annual water consumption of Poland. • 116 million tce of energy saving equals to the annual energy consumption of Australia. • Tourism activities decreasing in East relieve great water use stress in Northwest China. • Decreasing tourism demand in Southeast mitigates energy use stress in South China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]