Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Education Higher

Gaming the Metrics

Misconduct and Manipulation in Academic Research

edited by Mario Biagioli & Alexandra Lippman

Publisher
MIT Press
Initial publish date
Jan 2020
Category
Higher, Evaluation, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780262537933
    Publish Date
    Jan 2020
    List Price
    $60.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

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.

About the authors

Mario Biagioli is Distinguished Professor of Law and Science and Technology Studies and Director of the Center for Science and Innovation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

Mario Biagioli's profile page

Alexandra Lippman's profile page