Although the last few decades have seen astounding growth in the sheer output of research findings and conclusions, the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades. This is the finding of a study done in the United States by five professors from as many disciplines on the quality and quantity of academic scholarship during the past two decades.
IMAGE CREDIT: MICHAEL GLENWOOD FOR THE CHRONICLEIn “We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research,” an article published in the June 13, 2010 issue of
The Chronicle of Higher Education, professors Mark Bauerlein, Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Wayne Grody, Bill McKelvey, and Stanley W. Trimble report that instead of contributing to knowledge in various disciplines, the increasing number of low-cited publications only needlessly adds to the bulk of words and numbers to be reviewed.
“Even if read, many articles that are not cited by anyone would seem to contain little useful information,” the study’s authors say. “The avalanche of ignored research has a profoundly damaging effect on the enterprise as a whole. Not only does the uncited work itself require years of field and library or laboratory research. It also requires colleagues to read it and provide feedback, as well as reviewers to evaluate it formally for publication. Then, once it is published, it joins the multitudes of other, related publications that researchers must read and evaluate for relevance to their own work. Reviewer time and energy requirements multiply by the year. The impact strikes at the heart of academe.”
To remedy the problem, the authors suggest that the number of papers be limited to the best three, four, or five that a job or promotion candidate can submit so as to encourage more comprehensive and focused publishing; make more use of citation and journal “impact factors” that measure the citation visibility of established journals and of researchers who publish in them; and limit manuscripts to five to six journal-length pages while putting up a longer version on a journal’s website, making the two versions work as a package.
“There may well be other solutions,” the study’s authors conclude, “but what we surely need is a change in the academic culture that has given rise to the oversupply of journals.”
Read “We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research” in The Chronicle of Higher Education now!ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE STUDY:Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University; Mohamed Gad-el-Hak is a professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University; Wayne Grody, Bill McKelvey, and Stanley W. Trimble, respectively, are professors of medicine, management, and geography at the University of California at Los Angeles.
