Not The Only One Who Dislikes the Publication System
Tuesday June 16, 2009
Last week I gave my views on peer review and the authoring process. Turns out I am not the only one who has problems with the status quo. Business Deans have issues with it too, particularly when it comes to coauthorships:
Eighty percent of the business deans who responded to a recent survey said that co-authors are sometimes “carried” by a colleague on a published journal article, and most felt that faculty rewards are sometimes based on an undeserved publication record...I am certain this happens from time to time, but I am not sure if it is frequent enough that it is a serious problem. Thoughts?
According to the study, more than 70 percent of journal articles in business have two or more co-authors, in part because the rapid expansion of knowledge in business disciplines makes such collaboration necessary.
Another, “more sinister” reason may be at play, the authors note: “This would be when an author grants another faculty member a co-authorship position on an article when he or she has done no work or very little work, thereby not deserving to be cited as a co-author.”
The motive might be to help another person get a promotion or achieve tenure, or it might involve a payback in which two scholars agree to share co-authorship on different papers, the authors say.
Comments
Sometimes careers get derailed by more senior faculty that is trying to keep fellow faculty from becoming tenured and intentionally malaign their “research”. Unfortunately, it goes on for nothing more than jealousy for more qualified (the example I cite really happened) researchers because they wanted to get rid of the competition. The one who was derailed had over twice as many PHD hours in the area of economics and more publications than the ones who derailed this career. It is a crooked system. Peer reviews being used to sabotage co workers’ careers is questionable.
There are problems with peer review. There are problems with any system of evaluation. Jealously and personal differences do not play a part when peer review is properly carried out. If someone has an evaluation system they believe is better than peer review, let’s set up an experiment and test it.