^TagGoogle Scholar

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 7, 2022

Categorized
Peer Review

Tagged
citation counts, Citation inflation, Citations (reasons for growth), Featured, Google Scholar, H-index, Impact factor, Web of Science}

How the Inflation of Journal Citations Impacts Academia

_{Adjusted for inflation, a citation today is worth about half what it was ten years ago} _{Robert J. Marks

December 7, 2022

9

Peer Review}

Over 30 years ago, I coauthored a book, Neural Smithing, on training artificial neural networks. In 2021 it was cited 112 times — more than in any previous year. Why? I wish the only reason was that my book is a classic and has stood the test of time. But the book was on training neural networks and a lot has happened in that field over the last 30 years. Another, more substantial reason, I’m afraid, is citation inflation. Stated simply, there are many more citations today than a few years ago and my book is catching its fair share. Monetary inflation can be corrected to tell us the value of a year 2000 dollar in 2022. Likewise, citation inflation Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 26, 2022

Categorized
Data Privacy, Social Media, Surveillance

Tagged
Baidu search engine, Bing, Brave search engine, Dogpile search engine, DuckDuckGo Search, DuckDuckGo tracking users, Gabriel Weinberg, Google Scholar, Google Search, Internet Archive, LifeWire, Paul Gil, RapidAPI, Reliablesoft, Russ White, Search engines ranked, Wayback Machine, Yahoo Search, Yandex search engine, Zack Edwards}

Life Beyond Google Search: Try the Other Search Engines

_{Recently, DuckDuckGo was found to be tracking users sometimes, due to a deal with Microsoft. No matter, there are many search engines now…} _{News

July 26, 2022

4

Data Privacy, Social Media, Surveillance}

Search engine DuckDuckGo — famous for not tracking users — lost some favor recently, after its CEO had to admit that it does sometimes track users: Security researcher Zack Edwards this week revealed that DuckDuckGo’s mobile browsers allow some Microsoft sites to bypass its block on trackers. While the browser blocks Facebook and Google trackers, DuckDuckGo makes an exception for some of Microsoft’s. Edwards found that the browsers allow allows data to be sent to Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Bing domains DuckDuckGo said the exemption was due to a search agreement with Microsoft. Thomas Macaulay, “DuckDuckGo faces widespread backlash over tracking deal with Microsoft” at The NextWebMay 26, 2022 DuckDuckGo’s CEO Gabriel Weinberg pointed out to disappointed users that the company Read More ›

Stack of papers isolated on white background

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
June 17, 2021

Categorized
Peer Review, Science

Tagged
citation counts, Cyril Labbe, Elsevier, expert systems, Google Scholar, Peer Review, SCIgen}

A Vulnerable System: Fake Papers and Imaginary Scientists

_{Publication counts and citation indexes are too noisy and too easily manipulated to be reliable} _{Gary Smith

June 17, 2021

7

Peer Review, Science}

In the last two posts, we examined how scientific publication has ceased to be a good measure of scientific accomplishment, and how the peer review system is being gamed by unscrupulous publishers and researchers alike. Now, we will continue the discussion on the undermining of scientific publication using two examples: SCIgen and citation counts. SCIgen In 2005 three MIT graduate computer science students created a prank program they called SCIgen for using randomly selected words to generate bogus computer-science papers complete with realistic graphs of random numbers. Their goal was “maximum amusement rather than coherence,” and also to demonstrate that some academic conferences will accept almost anything. They submitted a hoax paper titled, “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
June 14, 2021

Categorized
Peer Review, Science

Tagged
Google Citations, Google Scholar, Peer Review, publish or perish}

Publish or Perish — Another Example of Goodhart’s Law

_{In becoming a target, publication has ceased to be a good measure} _{Gary Smith

June 14, 2021

5

Peer Review, Science}

The linchpin of scientific advances is that scientists publish their findings so that others can learn from them and expand on their insights. This is why some books are rightly considered among the most influential mathematical and scientific books of all time: Elements, Euclid, c. 300 B.C.Physics, Aristotle, c. 330 B.C.On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo Galilei, 1632Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Isaac Newton, 1687The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, 1859 As Newton said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” It seems logical to gauge the importance of modern-day researchers by how much they have published and how often their research has been cited Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
May 13, 2021

Categorized
Media, Peer Review, Science

Tagged
Academic publishing, arXiv.org, BIO-Complexity, Featured, Google Scholar, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)), Open access publishing, Scholarly Publishing}

Inside the Economics of Science Papers

_{Here’s an inside look at who pays if you read for free} _{Robert J. Marks

May 13, 2021

6

Media, Peer Review, Science}

When a scholarly paper is published, someone has to pay. Publishers like Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), my professional society, and Springer charge big bucks to read their papers. The fees are billed to individual subscribers and, more commonly, to companies and universities who want to give their employees access to the papers. My own university, Baylor, like most research universities, has a considerable library budget on account of these publisher fees. There is growing pressure to kill these fees in favor of “open access” to scholarly papers. Thus, anyone can read a scholarly paper at any time for free. Free access takes the money from the pockets of publishers so they push back. Someone has to pay, Read More ›