Open Knowledge for a Connected Future

In this seminal work, Professor Jianfeng Zhan systematically differentiates intelligent life from normal objects through two defining properties: interrogation and free will. He presents a novel framework for fundamental interrogations: encompassing measurement, testing, reasoning and evaluation. Building on this foundation, Zhan provides a formal definition of cause and effect, positing that evaluation fundamentally involves uncovering an object's effects. He rigorously formalizes the evaluation problem, along with its dual challenges—design and inverse problems—de-evaluation and introduces the groundbreaking discipline of Evaluatology. This discipline establishes a universal framework, including universal concepts, axioms, fundamental issues and methodology. Collaborating with colleagues, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers, Zhan et al. further develop foundational evaluation methodologies, explore novel pathways toward Strong Artificial Intelligence, and demonstrate the wide-ranging applications of Evaluatology across diverse domains.

BenchCouncil Transactions on Benchmarks, Standards and Evaluations (TBench) is an open-access multi-disciplinary journal dedicated to benchmarks, standards, evaluations, optimizations, and data sets. This journal is a peer-reviewed, subsidized open access journal where The BenchCouncil Press on behalf of International Open Benchmark Council pays the OA fee. Authors do not have to pay any open access publication fee. However, at least one of the authors must register BenchCouncil International Symposium on Benchmarking, Measuring and Optimizing (Bench) (https://www.benchcouncil.org/bench/) and present their work. It is committed to maintaining high-quality publications with an efficient review and publication process, with an average turnaround time of two to three months.

BenchCouncil Proceedings on Evaluation Science and Engineering: Evaluatology (PEvaluation) serves as the official Proceedings of Bench 2026. PEvaluation is an open-access, continuously published Proceedings series dedicated to Evaluation Science and Engineering. It publishes high-quality research contributions in areas including evaluation theory and methodology, evaluation engineering, benchmarks, datasets, measurement and testing, evaluation standards, and cross-disciplinary evaluation practices.