Comments on: Academic publications as spam http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/03/04/academic-publications-as-spam/ The blog of John D. Cook Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:10:06 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Christian Langreiter http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/03/04/academic-publications-as-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-14312 Christian Langreiter Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:42:22 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1677#comment-14312 See also Donald Geman's <a href="http://www.cis.jhu.edu/publications/papers_in_database/GEMAN/Ten_Reasons.pdf" rel="nofollow">Ten Reasons Why Conference Papers Should Be Abolished</a>. See also Donald Geman’s Ten Reasons Why Conference Papers Should Be Abolished.

]]> By: Barry Leiba http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/03/04/academic-publications-as-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-14104 Barry Leiba Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:07:39 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1677#comment-14104 It's all related to the pressure to publish, of course. If we didn't measure our worth by the length of our publication lists, we could concentrate on only accepting (and then only writing) papers that were worth reading. The same is true, and for the same reason, of patents. I figure at least 95% of the software patents out there are garbage, failing to meet at least one, and often two or all three, of the criteria: useful, novel, non-obvious. It’s all related to the pressure to publish, of course. If we didn’t measure our worth by the length of our publication lists, we could concentrate on only accepting (and then only writing) papers that were worth reading.

The same is true, and for the same reason, of patents. I figure at least 95% of the software patents out there are garbage, failing to meet at least one, and often two or all three, of the criteria: useful, novel, non-obvious.

]]> By: John Venier http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/03/04/academic-publications-as-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-14099 John Venier Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:03:15 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1677#comment-14099 Isn't this why they started the citation index? The idea is to judge productivity (especially with regard to tenure decisions) by how many papers cite one's work, rather than how many papers one produces. Or you could think of it as a weighted measure, where the number of papers is weighted by the number of citations of that paper appear in published papers. If I recall correctly, something similar was why Google originally led the pack as a search engine in the dark ages -- their idea was to rank results (at least in part) by how many other websites link to the result. Anyway, apropos of academic publications and spam, no discussion would be complete without a reference to <a href="http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/" rel="nofollow">SCIgen</a>. Isn’t this why they started the citation index?

The idea is to judge productivity (especially with regard to tenure decisions) by how many papers cite one’s work, rather than how many papers one produces. Or you could think of it as a weighted measure, where the number of papers is weighted by the number of citations of that paper appear in published papers.

If I recall correctly, something similar was why Google originally led the pack as a search engine in the dark ages — their idea was to rank results (at least in part) by how many other websites link to the result.

Anyway, apropos of academic publications and spam, no discussion would be complete without a reference to SCIgen.

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