Archives des mots-clés : Publish-or-Perish

Prevalence of nonsensical algorithmically generated papers in the scientific literature

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Authors : Guillaume Cabanac, Cyril Labbé

In 2014 leading publishers withdrew more than 120 nonsensical publications automatically generated with the SCIgen program. Casual observations suggested that similar problematic papers are still published and sold, without follow-up retractions.

No systematic screening has been performed and the prevalence of such nonsensical publications in the scientific literature is unknown. Our contribution is 2-fold.

First, we designed a detector that combs the scientific literature for grammar-based computer-generated papers. Applied to SCIgen, it has a 83.6% precision. Second, we performed a scientometric study of the 243 detected SCIgen-papers from 19 publishers.

We estimate the prevalence of SCIgen-papers to be 75 per million papers in Information and Computing Sciences. Only 19% of the 243 problematic papers were dealt with: formal retraction (12) or silent removal (34).

Publishers still serve and sometimes sell the remaining 197 papers without any caveat. We found evidence of citation manipulation via edited SCIgen bibliographies. This work reveals metric gaming up to the point of absurdity: fraudsters publish nonsensical algorithmically generated papers featuring genuine references.

It stresses the need to screen papers for nonsense before peer-review and chase citation manipulation in published papers. Overall, this is yet another illustration of the harmful effects of the pressure to publish or perish.

URL : Prevalence of nonsensical algorithmically generated papers in the scientific literature

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24495

Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 2) — a multi-actor qualitative study on problems of science

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Authors : Noémie Aubert Bonn, Wim Pinxten

Background

Research misconduct and questionable research practices have been the subject of increasing attention in the past few years. But despite the rich body of research available, few empirical works also include the perspectives of non-researcher stakeholders.

Methods

We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science.

We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.

Results

Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series with the current paper focusing on the problems that affect the integrity and research culture. We first found that different actors have different perspectives on the problems that affect the integrity and culture of research.

Problems were either linked to personalities and attitudes, or to the climates in which researchers operate. Elements that were described as essential for success (in the associate paper) were often thought to accentuate the problems of research climates by disrupting research culture and research integrity.

Even though all participants agreed that current research climates need to be addressed, participants generally did not feel responsible nor capable of initiating change. Instead, respondents revealed a circle of blame and mistrust between actor groups.

Conclusions

Our findings resonate with recent debates, and extrapolate a few action points which might help advance the discussion.

First, the research integrity debate must revisit and tackle the way in which researchers are assessed.

Second, approaches to promote better science need to address the impact that research climates have on research integrity and research culture rather than to capitalize on individual researchers’ compliance.

Finally, inter-actor dialogues and shared decision making must be given priority to ensure that the perspectives of the full research system are captured. Understanding the relations and interdependency between these perspectives is key to be able to address the problems of science.

URL : Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 2) — a multi-actor qualitative study on problems of science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-020-00105-z

Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 1) — a multi-actor qualitative study on success in science

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Authors : Noémie Aubert Bonn, Wim Pinxten

Background

Success shapes the lives and careers of scientists. But success in science is difficult to define, let alone to translate in indicators that can be used for assessment. In the past few years, several groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the indicators currently used for assessing researchers.

But given the lack of agreement on what should constitute success in science, most propositions remain unanswered. This paper aims to complement our understanding of success in science and to document areas of tension and conflict in research assessments.

Methods

We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science.

We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.

Results

Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series, with the current paper focusing on what defines and determines success in science. Respondents depicted success as a multi-factorial, context-dependent, and mutable construct.

Success appeared to be an interaction between characteristics from the researcher (Who), research outputs (What), processes (How), and luck. Interviewees noted that current research assessments overvalued outputs but largely ignored the processes deemed essential for research quality and integrity.

Interviewees suggested that science needs a diversity of indicators that are transparent, robust, and valid, and that also allow a balanced and diverse view of success; that assessment of scientists should not blindly depend on metrics but also value human input; and that quality should be valued over quantity.

Conclusions

The objective of research assessments may be to encourage good researchers, to benefit society, or simply to advance science. Yet we show that current assessments fall short on each of these objectives. Open and transparent inter-actor dialogue is needed to understand what research assessments aim for and how they can best achieve their objective.

URL : Rethinking success, integrity, and culture in research (part 1) — a multi-actor qualitative study on success in science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-020-00104-0

How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

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Author : Hendrik P. van Dalen

The publish-or-perish principle has become a fact of academic life in gaining a position or being promoted. Evidence is mounting that benefits of this pressure is being countered by the downsides, like forms of goal displacement by scientists or unethical practices.

In this paper we evaluate whether perceived work pressure (publishing, acquisition funds, teaching, administration) is associated with different attitudes towards science and the workplace among economists working at Dutch universities.

Publication pressure is high and is related to faculty position and university ranking position. Based on a latent class analysis we can detect a clear divide among economists. Around two third of the economists perceives that this pressure has upsides as well as serious downsides and one third only perceives upsides and no downsides.

Full professors see more than other faculty members the positive sides of the publish-or-perish principle and virtually no downsides. These different perceptions are also reflected in their appreciation of the academic work environment.

URL : How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03786-x

Publication strategies under the Publish or Perish Paradigm – using Kolb’s ELT to understand PhD students’ needs

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Authors : Charlotte Nordahl Wien, Bertil F. Dorch, Lone Bredahl, Mette Brandt Eriksen

Having a viable publication strategy at an early stage of the career can nowadays make a researcher. Not having one appears to break them. We as librarians are in a unique position to guide them in their endeavours to create a viable publication strategy.

In this paper we use Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory as our theoretical framework for understanding learning processes related to the development of a publication strategy.

We compare a set of publication strategies developed by newly enrolled PhD students 4 to 5 years ago to articles retrieved from PubMed and Scopus using the PhD students’ ORCID as identifier. We subdivide the publication strategies into three categories (fulfilled, partially fulfilled, abandoned).

We find evidence that the more realistic the publication plan is, the more likely it is to be followed.

This indicates that it is of importance that PhD schools support students’ efforts in developing their publication strategy at an early stage of their career.

URL : Publication strategies under the Publish or Perish Paradigm – using Kolb’s ELT to understand PhD students’ needs

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10349

Publications numériques scientifiques universitaires internationales : Disruption, quels acteurs,quels projets ?

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Auteur/Author : Appoline Romanens

Les enseignants-chercheurs d’aujourd’hui se heurtent à des APC, ont besoin de logiciels de PAO, avec un DMP pour apparaître dans la base de données du DOAJ, ou espérer rentrer dans celle duWoS.

Tous ces termes nous semblent éloignés du jargon du Journal des Sçavans, première manifestation de la compilation des pensées de la recherche scientifique.

Pourtant ils sont le signe d’une évolution du médium qui porte l’article académique scientifique aujourd’hui, le web de données, dans lequel toute publication scientifique se doit d’être réticulée pour survivre au publish or perish.

Afin de comprendre ce nouveau jargon de la recherche scientifique, qui témoigne de profonds changements dans le rapport qu’entretient l’enseignant-chercheur, l’éditeur puis le lecteur par rapport au texte, ce mémoire explore la notion de disruption dans le processus de création, relecture et édition puis publication et diffusion d’un article.

Outre un développement basé sur les théories de l’économie du document et de l’article scientifique, ce mémoire apporte deux études de cas qui rendent compte du phénomène de disruption dans les publications scientifiques, et propose à partir de ce corpus une ouverture sur ses enjeux actuels et futurs.

URL : Publications numériques scientifiques universitaires internationales : Disruption, quels acteurs,quels projets ?

Original location : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/69398-publications-numeriques-scientifiques-universitaires-internationales-disruption-quels-acteurs-quels-projets

Perceived publication pressure in Amsterdam: Survey of all disciplinary fields and academic ranks

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Authors : Tamarinde L. Haven, Lex M. Bouter, Yvo M. Smulders, Joeri K. Tijdink

Publications determine to a large extent the possibility to stay in academia (“publish or perish”). While some pressure to publish may incentivise high quality research, too much publication pressure is likely to have detrimental effects on both the scientific enterprise and on individual researchers.

Our research question was: What is the level of perceived publication pressure in the four academic institutions in Amsterdam and does the pressure to publish differ between academic ranks and disciplinary fields?

Investigating researchers in Amsterdam with the revised Publication Pressure Questionnaire, we find that a negative attitude towards the current publication climate is present across academic ranks and disciplinary fields.

Postdocs and assistant professors (M = 3.42) perceive the greatest publication stress and PhD-students (M = 2.44) perceive a significant lack of resources to relieve publication stress. Results indicate the need for a healthier publication climate where the quality and integrity of research is rewarded.

URL : Perceived publication pressure in Amsterdam: Survey of all disciplinary fields and academic ranks

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217931