A researcher who publishes a study every two days | Hacker News Reader

A researcher who publishes a study every two days

english.elpais.com

51 pointsAnon8411 comments

  Eva Méndez — an expert in open science at the Carlos III University of Madrid — criticizes the current system and the “predatory behavior” of all scientific publishers. “Paying 43 million euros a year is outrageous. With those 43 million euros, a great alternative system could be made,”

I left academia 20 years ago, back when this was a new (or newish at least) idea. It's sad that after 20 years this is STILL being discussed. It feels like the world of publishing is changing so slow, still.

The existence of paper mills is well-known. What's the remedy, however? If bad behavior is allowed to exist then that means it's not particularly considered harmful, or there is vested interest in allowing its existence.

Enough people care about this to not let this go on unabated, so it's not a matter of time or resources. What seems more likely is that corporate interests (and perhaps lobbying?) keep this sort of behavior alive.

An immediate remedy that comes to mind is that each research institution at a certain level (R1s at least) should be made responsible for establishing an internal body of scientists whose job is nothing but replication. Moreover, establish a replication index for each scientist instead of a citiation index.

Don't be surprised that smart people will game metrics if their fate is tied to it. It's just one more instance of the system where people are reduced to a few numbers.

This is why the rules of the game need to change. A researcher who publishes garbage, or acts unethically should be unemployable in their field. They shouldn't be given public funding. Any papers they have previously worked on should be considered highly suspect until they can be carefully checked and verified. Journals that publish shoddy work and papers by unethical researchers should be considered untrustworthy too.

>>It’s unethical to use a person’s name to publish a study or charge for co-authorship.

Maybe I am alone on this, but is "collaborating" on topics one has little to no in-depth knowledge in and essentially just checking the language/graphics significantly less unethical?

Being a co-author in-itself can be viewed as a thing of value, even if one does not receive monetary compensation.

It is unethical to misrepresent your involvement. I personally see no reason to punish publishing papers with a high degree of the division of labor but I do take issue with the idea that everyone contributed the same amount of work.

Co-authorship no longer means anything. If academics insist on counting points, then let the primary author allocate 10 points across all the coauthors.

We also have a system lets academics collect points, without risk of losing them. A badly researched paper or unethical practice should cost points and destroy reputations.

> essentially just checking the language/graphics

I'm outside academia, but that seems unethical to me. As you said, the co-authorship brings the real value. These people want tenured positions not a few hundred dollars.

if you check language/graphics or anything similar you are an editor, not an author.

https://www.itrilon.com/ (mentioned in the article, truly a thing of beauty)

Academia-hacking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com