It Works for SEO and Narcotics… and Academics
February 14, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Academic research papers that have been cited often are probably credible, right? These days, not so much. Science reports, “Citation Cartels Help Some Mathematicians – and their Universities – Climb the Rankings.” Referring to an analysis by University of Vigo’s Domingo Docampo, writer Michele Catanzaro tells us:
“Cliques of mathematicians at institutions in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have been artificially boosting their colleagues’ citation counts by churning out low-quality papers that repeatedly reference their work, according to an unpublished analysis seen by Science. As a result, their universities—some of which do not appear to have math departments—now produce a greater number of highly cited math papers each year than schools with a strong track record in the field, such as Stanford and Princeton universities. These so-called ‘citation cartels’ appear to be trying to improve their universities’ rankings, according to experts in publication practices. ‘The stakes are high—movements in the rankings can cost or make universities tens of millions of dollars,’ says Cameron Neylon, a professor of research communication at Curtin University. ‘It is inevitable that people will bend and break the rules to improve their standing.’ In response to such practices, the publishing analytics company Clarivate has excluded the entire field of math from the most recent edition of its influential list of authors of highly cited papers, released in November 2023.”
Thanks MSFT Copilot Bing thing. You are mostly working today. Actually well enough for good enough art.
Researchers say this manipulation occurs across disciplines, but the relatively low number of published math papers makes it more obvious in that field. When Docampo noticed the trend, the mathematician analyzed 15 years’ worth of Clarivate’s data to determine which universities were publishing highly cited math papers and who was citing them. Back in 2008 – 2010, legitimately heavy-hitters like UCLA and Princeton were at the top of the cited list. But in the last few years those were surpassed by institutions not exactly known for their mathematics prowess. Many were based in China, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. And, yes, those citations were coming from inside the writers’ own schools. Sneaky. But not sneaky enough.
There may again come a time when citations can be used as a metric for reliability. Docampo is working on a system to weigh citations according to the quality of the citing journals and institutions. Until then, everyone should take citation counts with a grain of salt.
Cynthia Murrell, February 14, 2024
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