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

• Superior document: Infrastructures
• TeilnehmendeR: Biagioli, Mario, 1955-; Lippman, Alexandra,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge : : The MIT Press,, [2020]
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Infrastructures series.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (307 pages).

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.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: Metrics and the New Ecologies of Academic Misconduct -- Beyond Truth and Falsehood: Innovation in Manipulation -- Redefining Publication and Evaluation -- From Content to Metadata -- Are Journals Becoming Mints? -- Emergent Objects, Emergent Manipulations -- Ways of Gaming -- Fake Is No Longer What It Used to Be -- New Evidence, New Watchdogs -- Notes -- References -- I. Beyond and Before Metrics -- 1. Gaming Metrics Before the Game: Citation and the Bureaucratic Virtuoso -- "Fun and Games with Citations" -- Notes -- References

2. The Transformation of the Scientific Paper: From Knowledge to Accounting Unit -- The Classic Cycle of Accumulation of Symbolic Capital -- The Multifarious Effects of Research Evaluation -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- 3. Playing and Being Played by the Research Impact Game -- REF2014 and Impact -- The Impact Case Study as an Accounting Unit -- Evidence of Impact and Solicited Testimony -- Meta-Gaming -- Qualitative Commensuration -- Impact and the Logic of Auditability -- Conclusions: From Traces to Metrics -- Notes -- References -- 4. The Mismeasurement of Quality and Impact -- Notes

Two Empirical Blows to the Pressures-to-Publish Narrative -- Salami-Slicing Collaborations and Sandwiching Results as Alternative Gaming Strategies -- References -- 9. Ghost-Managing and Gaming Pharmaceutical Knowledge -- Publication Planning -- Speaker Programs and Other KOL Activities -- A Citation Puzzle -- Conclusion: Multiple Leverage Points -- References -- III. Interventions: Notes from the Field -- 10. Retraction Watch: What We've Learned and How Metrics Play a Role -- References -- 11. PubPeer: Scientific Assessment Without Metrics -- Notes

12. The Voinnet Affair: Testing the Norms of Scientific Image Management -- Rethinking Misconduct Through High-Visibility Affairs -- Public Critiques and the Mediatization of the "Voinnet Affair" -- The Institutions React -- Conclusion -- Postscript -- Notes -- References -- 13. Crossing the Line: Pseudonyms and Snark in Post-Publication Peer Review -- Prologue-How I Got into This Mess -- The Blog -- The Legal Threats -- The Aftermath -- Notes -- References -- 14. Ike Antkare, His Publications, and Those of His Disciples -- Introduction -- The SCI Generators