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A decade ago I was critically opposed to the gamification of academic peer-review. It is sad to see my suspicions vindicated through Goodhart's law.

https://www.science.org/content/article/suspicious-phrases-peer-reviews-point-referees-gaming-system

Point in case: "They could then take credit for the work on their CVs to gain a boost in professional evaluations. Some may have additional self-interest: Several reviewers asked the author to include citations to their own papers, and some authors complied."

#academia #ethics #peerreview #publishing #gamification

#publishing #academia #peerreview #ethics #gamification
in reply to Koen Hufkens, PhD

Dr. Evan J. Gowan
Dr. Evan J. Gowan
• •

Are there places that use how many peer reviews you have done as part of their evaluation? I have never heard of it before.

Of course the citation thing is a problem, and that could easily go away if institutions stopped judging based on citations. It is a dumb thing that is discipline specific.

This is MDPI that we are talking about, though. They were always set up to grift.

in reply to Dr. Evan J. Gowan

Frank Aylward
Frank Aylward
• •
@DrEvanGowan i am asked to provide a summary of this on my annual review, and I believe many profs at other unis are as well
@Dr. Evan J. Gowan
in reply to Frank Aylward

Koen Hufkens, PhD
Koen Hufkens, PhD
• •
Is this a recent thing? I always felt they (Publons etc) created this market.
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Koen Hufkens, PhD

Frank Aylward
Frank Aylward
• •
@DrEvanGowan since I started in 2017. It is considered service. I don't think it's bad to broadly keep track of these things in a qualitative way, but as you noted, an obsession with quantification and metrics to compare people leads to abuse as with Goodhart's law
@Dr. Evan J. Gowan

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