Academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming: A reassessment

Abstract

The motivation for this Special Issue is increasing concern not only with academic misconduct but also with less easily defined forms of misrepresentation and gaming. In an era of intense emphasis on measuring academic performance, there has been a proliferation of scandals, questionable behaviors and devious stratagems involving not just individuals but also organizations, including universities, editors and reviewers, journal publishers, and conference organizers. This introduction first reviews the literature on the prevalence of academic misconduct, misrepresentation and gaming (MMG). The core of the article is organized around a life-cycle model of the production and dissemination of research results. We synthesize the findings in the MMG literature at the level of the investigator or research team, emphasizing that misbehavior extends well beyond fabrication and falsification to include behaviors designed to exaggerate or to mislead readers as to the significance of research findings. MMG is next explored in the post-research review, publication, and post-publication realms. Moving from the individual researcher to the organizational level, we examine how MMG can be engaged in by either journals or organizations employing or funding the researchers. The changing institutional environment including the growth of research assessment exercises, increased quantitative output measurement and greater pressure to publish may all encourage MMG. In the final section, we summarize the main conclusions and offer suggestions both on how we might best address the problems and on topics for future research.

Gaming the Metrics

“…Nor do we suggest that they are a lesser evil than traditional misconduct, or that they should be labelled as "questionable practices" rather than misconduct because they do not necessarily affect the core of a publication-its evidence and claims. The line between misconduct and questionable practice is notoriously hard to draw (Steneck, 2004;Biagioli, Kenney, Martin, and Walsh, 2019), and, more importantly, we cannot be positive that the different definitions of fraud and misconduct adopted by different countries, agencies, and academic institutions are accurate or fully commensurable with each other. This is not meant as a criticism but as an acknowledgment that the thinking, definitions, and policies about misconduct have been and continue to be the work in progress of hundreds of concerned practitioners in universities, governmental institutions, funding agencies, and journals (Jacob, 2014).…”

How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess

“…Today, both excessive self-citation and citation cartels are real concerns and have been documented (Ioannidis 2015;Fister et al 2016;Heneberg 2016;Fong and Wilhite 2017;Zaggl 2017;Scarpa et al 2018;Baccini et al 2019;Biagioli et al 2019;Seeber et al 2019;Biagioli and Lippman 2020). Excessive and artificial forms of self-citation have been discussed and studied for:…”

On the Willingness to Report and the Consequences of Reporting Research Misconduct: The Role of Power Relations

“…This literature has also developed an inventory of 'novel' forms of academic misbehaviour (Callaway 2015;Sacco et al 2018;Biagioli et al 2019;Bouter et al 2016), including estimations of how often some of these forms occur (e.g. Hopp and Hoover 2017;Fanelli 2009).…”