Might the temperature references come from Yves Gingras's excellent book on bibliometrics and research and evaluation? He defines the qualities of a good indicator as being 1) adequate, 2) sensitive and 3) homogeneous. He uses the thermometer as an illustration of an instrument that need to be sensitive to that which it measures. I.e. If it reads 20Â° one minute and 10Â° the next you know it's faulty. In the same way, if an institution appears at number five in a ranking one year and number 500 in the ranking the following year you know the ranking is faulty...

Elizabeth Gadd