How a widely used ranking system ended up with three fake journals in its top 10 philosophy list

[posic]

https://retractionwatch.com/2024/06/12/how-a-widely-used-ranking-system-ended-up-with-three-fake-journals-in-its-top-10-philosophy-list/

https://www.facebook.com/ProfessorNicolaiJFoss/posts/pfbid02WF5ZV1SoH22DbDa5pSPgUB45CGcqEDG4NNZ4d2wCwcz9V8vZEqNuQJbS8UwJdo7rl

Профессор Николай Фосс цитирует:

"How was it possible to get into the Scopus top 10 in philosophy? The trick is simple: The Addleton journals extensively cross-cite each other. For example, of 541 citations to Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations used to calculate the 2023 CiteScore, 208 come from journals published by Addleton. Additional citations come mostly from Frontiers and MDPI journals.

These journals are filled with automatically generated papers, all using the same template, extensively using buzzwords such as “blockchain,” “metaverse,” “deep learning,” “immersive visualization,” “neuro-engineering technologies,” and “internet of things.” Most papers claim to examine the recently published literature on these topics by “a quantitative literature review of the main databases.” They also claim to analyze initially (always!) between 170 and 180 articles that satisfied the undisclosed “eligibility criteria.”"

Comments

[chaource]

It was never so easy to milk the system. Now we have a whole publishing house - filled with fake academic papers- organized only for the purpose of getting on the top ranking lists and selling itself to academic universities.

[posic]

The system of quantitative rankings was invented in order to evaluate mediocre but moderately good-faith scientists. It is was never supposed to withstand calculated, deliberate attacks of outright crooks. The proponents of the quantitative rankings have been told many times that their favorite system is vulnerable to crooks. Their thirst for measurement of the unmeasurable was so strong that they did not listen.

[chaource]

I think the main clients of the quantitative ranking system is the academic bureaucracy who is now able to justify their squandering of the taxpayers’ money by referring to the “objective” rankings. The bureaucrats certainly don’t care whether the system is easy to manipulate.

What is surprising to me is that entire fake publishers have arisen because the system is easy to game in that way.

[posic]

What's so surprising? There never was, and cannot be, any clear border between "manipulative" and "genuine". It is all a matter of degree. Any line you draw would be a line in the sand. The bureaucrats create perverse incentives, and people respond to perverse incentives. Much of everything is fake nowadays; and why not fake publishers? Say, is MDPI a fake publisher? I would maintain that it is. But the existence of MDPI is certainly old news. There is also Lambert etc.