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Let's take hiring decisions. Who's assessing the number of papers published by candidates, the number of citations those papers received, the impact factors of

Let's take hiring decisions. Who's assessing the number of papers published by candidates, the number of citations those papers received, the impact factors of the journals in which the papers were published? Who's writing the recommendation/reference letters for the candidates? The answer is other scientists, and greater weight is given to the opinion, assessment, letters of "leading scientists". The "system" was set up over time by scientists, for scientists.

n4r9 3y ago
Scientists might feel pressure to take impact factors into account when hiring. That doesn't necessarily mean that they want to promote impact factors, or that they think impact factors are good for science. It could for example mean that the university/institute has made their funding and other perks contingent on achieving certain metrics. Blaming scientists for this is like blaming employees for poor working conditions because they signed a contract. It ignores the fact that they had no choice but to sign the contract, if they want a job.
- borroka 3y ago
  What you propose is a hypothesis. Fine. The hypothesis is not supported by any clear evidence. I cannot think of a public university administrator who is not a scientist/researcher/faculty who is familiar with impact factors, the relative strength of journals outside the top 5 and then maybe (Nature, Science, PNAS, Cell[maybe], NEJoM[maybe]), and similar metrics. In contrast, scientists talk about impact factors, citations, and journals all the time. A few years ago, my home country started this enabling system for tenure candidates. Who do you think proposed as criteria, for tenure, the year-weighted citations, the impact factor of the journals in which the research was published as a discriminating factor? Faculties. Who now say that the system is, for all intents and purposes, unchangeable.
  - n4r9 3y ago
    In the UK there is a programme called the Research Excellence Framework - run by a government body - which allocates research funding to academic institutes according to research quality (as measured by various benchmarks) as well as impact on society and the economy. Institutes and faculties are directly financially impacted by how well they score on this framework. It's not surprising that scientists feel the pressure to game the system.

n4r9 3y ago

Scientists might feel pressure to take impact factors into account when hiring. That doesn't necessarily mean that they want to promote impact factors, or that they think impact factors are good for science. It could for example mean that the university/institute has made their funding and other perks contingent on achieving certain metrics. Blaming scientists for this is like blaming employees for poor working conditions because they signed a contract. It ignores the fact that they had no choice but to sign the contract, if they want a job.

borroka 3y ago
What you propose is a hypothesis. Fine. The hypothesis is not supported by any clear evidence. I cannot think of a public university administrator who is not a scientist/researcher/faculty who is familiar with impact factors, the relative strength of journals outside the top 5 and then maybe (Nature, Science, PNAS, Cell[maybe], NEJoM[maybe]), and similar metrics. In contrast, scientists talk about impact factors, citations, and journals all the time. A few years ago, my home country started this enabling system for tenure candidates. Who do you think proposed as criteria, for tenure, the year-weighted citations, the impact factor of the journals in which the research was published as a discriminating factor? Faculties. Who now say that the system is, for all intents and purposes, unchangeable.
- n4r9 3y ago
  In the UK there is a programme called the Research Excellence Framework - run by a government body - which allocates research funding to academic institutes according to research quality (as measured by various benchmarks) as well as impact on society and the economy. Institutes and faculties are directly financially impacted by how well they score on this framework. It's not surprising that scientists feel the pressure to game the system.