Gaming the metrics : misconduct and manipulation in academic research / edited by Mario Biagioli and Alexandra Lippman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Biagioli, Mario, 1955-2025, editor.

Lippman, Alexandra, editor.

Series:

Infrastructures.

Infrastructures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Scholarly publishing--Corrupt practices.

Scholarly publishing.

Learning and scholarship--Corrupt practices.

Learning and scholarship.

Research--Corrupt practices.

Research.

Communication in learning and scholarship--Moral and ethical aspects.

Communication in learning and scholarship.

Corruption.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (306 pages).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : The MIT Press, [2020]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

How the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The traditional academic imperative to "publish or perish" is increasingly coupled with the newer necessity of "impact or perish"--the requirement that a publication have "impact," as measured by a variety of metrics, including citations, views, and downloads. Gaming the Metrics examines how the increasing reliance on metrics to evaluate scholarly publications has produced radically new forms of academic fraud and misconduct. The contributors show that the metrics-based "audit culture" has changed the ecology of research, fostering the gaming and manipulation of quantitative indicators, which lead to the invention of such novel forms of misconduct as citation rings and variously rigged peer reviews. The chapters, written by both scholars and those in the trenches of academic publication, provide a map of academic fraud and misconduct today. They consider such topics as the shortcomings of metrics, the gaming of impact factors, the emergence of so-called predatory journals, the "salami slicing" of scientific findings, the rigging of global university rankings, and the creation of new watchdogs and forensic practices.

Contents:

I Beyond and Before Metrics p. 25

1 Gaming Metrics Before the Game: Citation and the Bureaucratic Virtuoso p. 31 / Alex Csiszar

2 The Transformation of the Scientific Paper: From Knowledge to Accounting Unit p. 43 / Yves Gingras

3 Playing and Being Played by the Research Impact Game p. 57 / Michael Power

4 The Mismeasurement of Quality and Impact p. 67 / Paul Wouters

5 Taking Goodhart's Law Meta: Gaming, Meta-Gaming, and Hacking Academic Performance Metrics p. 77 / James Griesemer

II Collaborative Manipulations p. 89

6 Global University Rankings: Impacts and Applications p. 93 / Barbara M. Kehm

7 Predatory Publishing and the Imperative of International Productivity: Feeding Off and Feeding Up the Dominant p. 101 / Sarah de Rijcke and Tereza Stöckelová

8 Pressures to Publish: What Effects Do We See? p. 111 / Daniele Fanelli

9 Ghost-Managing and Gaming Pharmaceutical Knowledge p. 123 / Sergio Sismondo

III Interventions: Notes from the Field p. 135

10 Retraction Watch: What We've Learned and How Metrics Play a Role p. 141 / Ivan Oransky

11 PubPeer: Scientific Assessment Without Metrics p. 149 / Boris Barbour and Brandon M. Stell

12 The Voinnet Affair: Testing the Norms of Scientific Image Management p. 157 / Catherine Guaspare and Emmanuel Didier

13 Crossing the Line: Pseudonyms and Snark in Post-Publication Peer Review p. 169 / Paul S. Brookes

14 Ike Antkare, His Publications, and Those of His Disciples p. 177 / Ike Antkare

15 Fake Scientists on Editorial Boards Can Significantly Enhance the Visibility of Junk Journals p. 201 / Burkhard Morgenstern

16 Altmetrics Gaming: Beast Within or Without? p. 213 / Jennifer Lin

17 Why We Could Stop Worrying About Gaming Metrics If We Stopped Using Journal Articles for Publishing Scientific Research p. 229 / Elizabeth Wager

IV Mimicry for Parody or Profit p. 237

18 Making People and Influencing Friends: Citation Networks and the Appearance of Significance p. 243 / Finn Brunton

19 Crack Open the Make Believe: Counterfeit, Publication Ethics, and the Global South p. 251 / Marie-Andrée Jacob

20 Fake Archives: The Search for Openness in Scholarly Communication Platforms p. 261 / Alessandro Delfanti

21 Humor, Hoaxes, and Software in the Search for Academic Misconduct p. 271 / Alexandra Lippman.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262356565

0262356562

OCLC:

1130310967

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access