4 ms·

Does it seem like "productivity" shouldn't be measured in number of papers? Isn't that how we got ourselves into the reproducibility mess?

boomboomsubban 9y ago
A replication study still needs to publish a paper, that is a separate issue.
tomkat0789 9y ago
Agreed. These couple of sentences deflate the click-baity title a bit: "The report echoes my earlier observations: lots of new countries are become scientific powers in terms of publication output, with China leading the charge. The major claim made by the report is that developed countries continue to dominate in terms of highly cited publications." The trend the article is talking about is China is catching up in terms of publication output. I've heard elsewhere that in Chinese universities things like tenure, promotions etc. are heavily weighted by publication output - perhaps without much respect for the research quality. I could see some fields/journals becoming echo chambers where researchers spam publications without actually making meaningful technical accomplishments. That's probably what we're seeing.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Professors in China get cash bonuses for publications in major western journals. The average payment for a Science or Nature paper is $44k and the average university professor makes $8k per year. See [1] for details and other journal payout rates. Imagine if US professors got half a million dollars for publishing in Nature or Science. The gaming going on to get published would be even crazier than it already is. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-chinas-cash-for-publication-policy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-ch...
Nokinside 9y ago
> Furthermore, the data presented in the paper clearly indicate that countries like China are bridging the gap with respect to how impactful their work is (see Fig. 2 in the report), on top of bridging the gap with respect to the total volume (see Table 1 in the report).
HarryHirsch 9y ago
Does it seem like "productivity" shouldn't be measured in number of papers? The fact that in many places it is measured in number of publications gave us Hindawi/Elsevier open access and OMICS spam conferences. That said, the number of really good publications from China in Western journals has risen from almost none in 1995 to a few in 2005 and nowadays they are plentiful. India, not so much, Japan, not so much.

boomboomsubban 9y ago

A replication study still needs to publish a paper, that is a separate issue.

tomkat0789 9y ago

Agreed. These couple of sentences deflate the click-baity title a bit: "The report echoes my earlier observations: lots of new countries are become scientific powers in terms of publication output, with China leading the charge. The major claim made by the report is that developed countries continue to dominate in terms of highly cited publications." The trend the article is talking about is China is catching up in terms of publication output. I've heard elsewhere that in Chinese universities things like tenure, promotions etc. are heavily weighted by publication output - perhaps without much respect for the research quality. I could see some fields/journals becoming echo chambers where researchers spam publications without actually making meaningful technical accomplishments. That's probably what we're seeing.

njarboe 9y ago
Professors in China get cash bonuses for publications in major western journals. The average payment for a Science or Nature paper is $44k and the average university professor makes $8k per year. See [1] for details and other journal payout rates. Imagine if US professors got half a million dollars for publishing in Nature or Science. The gaming going on to get published would be even crazier than it already is. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-chinas-cash-for-publication-policy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-ch...

Nokinside 9y ago

> Furthermore, the data presented in the paper clearly indicate that countries like China are bridging the gap with respect to how impactful their work is (see Fig. 2 in the report), on top of bridging the gap with respect to the total volume (see Table 1 in the report).

HarryHirsch 9y ago

Does it seem like "productivity" shouldn't be measured in number of papers? The fact that in many places it is measured in number of publications gave us Hindawi/Elsevier open access and OMICS spam conferences. That said, the number of really good publications from China in Western journals has risen from almost none in 1995 to a few in 2005 and nowadays they are plentiful. India, not so much, Japan, not so much.