Academic fraud in science is becoming a major issue. For the integrity of our academic institutions and science itself, something must be done to discourage these shade practices.
The term “fraud” in academic contexts has a different meaning than the everyday use of the word. Someone uses a deceitful notification to illegally obtain financial incentives. Science fraud sees perpetrators gain academic praise through deceit, fraud, and false expressions.
You might like it
However, there is also a growing trend in bibliographic manipulation. This includes practices such as self-quoting, citation cartels, and forced quoting. These practices are problematic because citations are the currency that academic journal articles, and the authors who write them, show their status. The more other researchers quote your article, the more influential it becomes. If the number of times an author or journal is referenced is artificially inflated, it can distort the perceived science as “important” in the field.
Other forms of author and journal misconduct also plague the sector. In fake peer review, the author reviews the paper by suggesting the peer’s name, but provides fake contact details. If journal editors don’t pay attention to seeing more details, this allows the submitting authors to write their own reviews. In the practice of “gift authors,” scholars can artificially inflate the number of publications and citations by adding the names of friends and colleagues as authors, despite not contributing to their work.
Kit Yates is a professor of mathematical biology and public engagement at the University of Bath, UK
There are also fully ghost-written papers where the name “author” is barely related to the paper, and have absolutely no relation to it.
In 2023, it was created through a “peer review” and was eventually published, but withdrew as the fraud was first discovered to have surpassed 10,000. And these papers, which have been discovered to be in fact a scam, may represent the tip of the iceberg. Some authors suggest that even one in seven scientific papers is fake, although estimates differ.
To some extent, academia brought these issues to an increased dependence on metrics and to judge academic, journal, or institutional performance. H indices – measure of the number of papers published by the academic and the frequency of citations (for example, 28 H-Indexes have 28 papers.
The decline in viewer-funded models means that article quality is no longer an important issue for some ironic journals. Even if no one is reading them, the money is in the bank.
Employment and Promotion Committees often use these benchmarks as shorthand for academic quality. In other words, academic job outlook and career progression can depend heavily on these numbers.
For journals, the Journal Impact Factor – Measures the average number of citations for each article published annually – is a similar indicator used to compare quality between publications. This not only brings fame to the journal, but also attracts better quality submissions that form a positive feedback loop.
You might like it
The problem with these metrics and performance metrics is that they are gameable by something uncrunching and hopeless. This is a classic example of Goodheart’s Law, which states that “when measurements become targets, they stop being a good measure.”
These metrics provide an evil incentive to make scholars public as soon as possible, with as much self-awareness as possible to escape as quickly as possible.
Adding lots of references to your own papers (relevant or not) and doing the same with your collaborative colleague cartels in their paper is one way to inflate these statistics. It may seem relatively harmless, but cramming unrelated papers into the reference section makes navigating the paper more difficult and ultimately reduces the quality of the science presented.
For the recent paper I submitted, one of the judges was one of those tasked with checking the paper before accepting public publication, and I requested that I cite an entire bundle of completely unrelated papers. As a senior academic, I was confident enough to complain to the journal about this judgement, but more junior colleagues who might mean the difference between whether or not the publication gets another job may not have felt comfortable complaining. If the journal has honesty, the judge should be scratched off the list, but some journals are less harsh than others.
In recent years, what has left the traditional model of academic publishing is seeing journals pay end users to access articles and make money towards the “open access” publishing model. In the face of that, Open Access democratizes research by allowing the public to (indirectly) make research funders (indirectly) accessible through government grants. This is why research funders often provide funding to universities for “article processing fees” (usually measured in thousands of dollars). It pays the journal to make published articles freely available.
However, this move towards open access provided another perverse incentive. The decline in viewer-funded models means that article quality is no longer an important issue for some ironic journals. Even if no one is reading them, the money is in the bank and the quote metrics are automatically harvested. The incentive for non-crude journals and academics is to publish as quickly as possible many papers as possible. Inevitably, the quality and reputation of science suffers as a result.
Scientific fraud efforts
So what can we do to reverse the widespread and growing threat trend of scientific fraud? The two-part report commissioned by the International Union of Mathematics (IMU) and the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) came up with some suggestions on how we might fight back.
Starting from the top, policymakers from politicians to fundraising institutions should encourage a transition from gaming metrics such as university rankings, journal rankings, impact factors, and H-indexes. Funding decisions in particular should be separated from these figures.
At the institutional level, research organizations should discourage bibliographic use in promotion and employment. Institutions can also vote on their own feet by deciding which articles to process fees, and the looting journal denies their main source of funding.
The majority of the problem is a simple lack of consciousness between scientists and those who work with them. Institutions should do more to educate researchers and research managers on unfair academic practices.
Of course, much of the responsibility to reduce academic fraud has to lie to the researchers themselves. This means carefully choosing which editorial boards will participate, which journals to submit their work to, and which journals to peer review. It also means speaking out when you encounter predatory practices. This is easier than you would say. Many people who oppose predatory practices choose to do so anonymously for fear of retaliation from publishers and their peers. As a result, whistleblowers need to develop a culture where they are protected and supported by their institutions.
Ultimately, whether good science is overflowing with a fierce mud of poor research, or whether we can reverse the tide, depends on the integrity of the researcher and the perceptions of the organizations that promote and fund it.
Opinions about live science give you insight into the most important issues of science that affect you and the world around you.
Source link
