6 ms·

It will always be an uphill climb the further down on the hill you are. However, Academia doesn't need to keep making the hill taller. The hardest part is thos

It will always be an uphill climb the further down on the hill you are. However, Academia doesn't need to keep making the hill taller. The hardest part is those at the top have the most advantages. For example, ivy league institutes now pay for substantial editing before it makes it to the peer review stage. This increases the quality of the work, but other scholars at institutes without the same level of funding are now competing against a higher bar, reducing their total output. (If you can save 200 hours of work per paper, you can put another paper out.) Money always imbalances the equation. This is yet another example. Unless institutions are willing to change the publication system, it will not get better, and it isn't in the interests in the institutions at the top to allow more competition.

marcosdumay 5y ago
> If you can save 200 hours of work per paper, you can put another paper out. I guess that's an opportunity for those countries to focus on research quality instead of publication volume and sidetrack the entire issue. But, well, they are not doing this. That's too bad.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  This could be nice, as long as universities correspondingly stopped using paper counts as a measure of researcher productivity when doing hiring or tenure decisions.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    Not only university hiring, but grant analysis also needs to change. This is something done top-down, not bottom-up. I guess that's why nobody is doing it.
  - MichaelZuo 5y ago
    Universities only use those metrics in lieu of actual proven results. A genius with demonstrated novel, reproducible, experimental results in any of the hard sciences or engineering will likely not encounter much difficulty getting a tenure track position at even the most selective schools. The really interesting question is why do so few researchers have novel, reproducible, experimental results?
- ebiester 5y ago
  However, having an editor that will engage with your work and provide expert feedback will make your work better, as well as save overall time. It's not quality versus quantity - it's paying for expert assistance. This isn't cheating, mind you - it's something every one of us will do, given the option. However, wealthy institutions can pay for it, and other institutions cannot - that leaves the academic to either pay out of their own pocket (say, if they have a partner who is in our industry and can afford to), or go without.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    > However, having an editor that will engage with your work and provide expert feedback will make your work better, as well as save overall time. You mean something like peer review before submission, or you mean a formal editor? A formal editor will only add value to that document. You may communicate things better, but it won't improve what things you communicate.
zucker42 5y ago
> This increases the quality of the work, but other scholars at institutes without the same level of funding are now competing against a higher bar, reducing their total output. Reducing output in exchange for quality doesn't sound like a particularly bad tradeoff, especially it's happening fairly naturally and as a response to a perceived lack of quality.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  It doesn’t sound natural at all for a wealthy institution to use money to hide fundamental weaknesses of its researchers(namely the ability to articulate their own research to their peers) when a less wealthy institution cannot afford to do so.
  - zucker42 5y ago
    Yeah, that's the way the commenter I responded to wants me to view it, but I'm skeptical of that way of looking at it. I view it as specialization, where two people each utilizing their strengths can accomplish more together than they would by simply aggregating their separate products. Why would I demand that someone who excels at research must necessarily be a fantastic writer, and why would I exclude a person who can make meaningful contributions to human knowledge but nonetheless needs help communicating? If results are freely shared (which is why open-access is so important!) science is not a competition because "less wealthy" and "wealthy" institutions but rather a collaborative process working toward shared goals.
    - ebiester 5y ago
      I don't think it's cheating at all. These editors not only copy edit, but also engage with your work. It's a fantastic service that reduces time and increases quality - what's not to like? However, when two Ph.D graduates are going up for a job, and the Harvard candidate has an additional paper or ten on the same or less effort, he has a leg up on the job market, and this may obscure the best researcher for the job. The committee is often not taking institutional inequities in account when looking for the best candidate. While science is not a competition, the academic market for jobs has devolved into one.
Nasrudith 5y ago
Ultimately "the top" doesn't mean anything if they cannot produce superior results as well. Katalin Karikó was shunned by academia with their moronic cliqueishness and scorn of mRNA research. Ultimately they will rot into irrelevance if they maintain such folly. Thinking that because you are the top you set the standard instead of setting the standard being why you are on top is dangerous.

marcosdumay 5y ago

> If you can save 200 hours of work per paper, you can put another paper out. I guess that's an opportunity for those countries to focus on research quality instead of publication volume and sidetrack the entire issue. But, well, they are not doing this. That's too bad.

bee_rider 5y ago
This could be nice, as long as universities correspondingly stopped using paper counts as a measure of researcher productivity when doing hiring or tenure decisions.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Not only university hiring, but grant analysis also needs to change. This is something done top-down, not bottom-up. I guess that's why nobody is doing it.
- MichaelZuo 5y ago
  Universities only use those metrics in lieu of actual proven results. A genius with demonstrated novel, reproducible, experimental results in any of the hard sciences or engineering will likely not encounter much difficulty getting a tenure track position at even the most selective schools. The really interesting question is why do so few researchers have novel, reproducible, experimental results?
ebiester 5y ago
However, having an editor that will engage with your work and provide expert feedback will make your work better, as well as save overall time. It's not quality versus quantity - it's paying for expert assistance. This isn't cheating, mind you - it's something every one of us will do, given the option. However, wealthy institutions can pay for it, and other institutions cannot - that leaves the academic to either pay out of their own pocket (say, if they have a partner who is in our industry and can afford to), or go without.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  > However, having an editor that will engage with your work and provide expert feedback will make your work better, as well as save overall time. You mean something like peer review before submission, or you mean a formal editor? A formal editor will only add value to that document. You may communicate things better, but it won't improve what things you communicate.

zucker42 5y ago

> This increases the quality of the work, but other scholars at institutes without the same level of funding are now competing against a higher bar, reducing their total output. Reducing output in exchange for quality doesn't sound like a particularly bad tradeoff, especially it's happening fairly naturally and as a response to a perceived lack of quality.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
It doesn’t sound natural at all for a wealthy institution to use money to hide fundamental weaknesses of its researchers(namely the ability to articulate their own research to their peers) when a less wealthy institution cannot afford to do so.
- zucker42 5y ago
  Yeah, that's the way the commenter I responded to wants me to view it, but I'm skeptical of that way of looking at it. I view it as specialization, where two people each utilizing their strengths can accomplish more together than they would by simply aggregating their separate products. Why would I demand that someone who excels at research must necessarily be a fantastic writer, and why would I exclude a person who can make meaningful contributions to human knowledge but nonetheless needs help communicating? If results are freely shared (which is why open-access is so important!) science is not a competition because "less wealthy" and "wealthy" institutions but rather a collaborative process working toward shared goals.
  - ebiester 5y ago
    I don't think it's cheating at all. These editors not only copy edit, but also engage with your work. It's a fantastic service that reduces time and increases quality - what's not to like? However, when two Ph.D graduates are going up for a job, and the Harvard candidate has an additional paper or ten on the same or less effort, he has a leg up on the job market, and this may obscure the best researcher for the job. The committee is often not taking institutional inequities in account when looking for the best candidate. While science is not a competition, the academic market for jobs has devolved into one.

Nasrudith 5y ago

Ultimately "the top" doesn't mean anything if they cannot produce superior results as well. Katalin Karikó was shunned by academia with their moronic cliqueishness and scorn of mRNA research. Ultimately they will rot into irrelevance if they maintain such folly. Thinking that because you are the top you set the standard instead of setting the standard being why you are on top is dangerous.