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Honest signaling in academic publishing
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 2, p e0246675 (2021), PLoS ONE, 16(2):e0246675. Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Academic journals provide a key quality-control mechanism in science. Yet, information asymmetries and conflicts of interests incentivize scientists to deceive journals about the quality of their research. How can honesty be ensured, despite incentives for deception? Here, we address this question by applying the theory of honest signaling to the publication process. Our models demonstrate that several mechanisms can ensure honest journal submission, including differential benefits, differential costs, and costs to resubmitting rejected papers. Without submission costs, scientists benefit from submitting all papers to high-ranking journals, unless papers can only be submitted a limited number of times. Counterintuitively, our analysis implies that inefficiencies in academic publishing (e.g., arbitrary formatting requirements, long review times) can serve a function by disincentivizing scientists from submitting low-quality work to high-ranking journals. Our models provide simple, powerful tools for understanding how to promote honest paper submission in academic publishing.
- Subjects :
- Science and Technology Workforce
Economics
Research Quality Assessment
Conflicts of Interest
Social Sciences
Careers in Research
0302 clinical medicine
Information asymmetry
Sociology
Honesty
Psychology
Function (engineering)
GeneralLiterature_REFERENCE(e.g.,dictionaries,encyclopedias,glossaries)
Research Integrity
media_common
Multidisciplinary
05 social sciences
Research Assessment
Professions
Incentive
Publishing
Medicine
Research Article
Quality Control
Deception
Science Policy
media_common.quotation_subject
Science
Internet privacy
Research and Analysis Methods
050105 experimental psychology
Ethics, Research
03 medical and health sciences
Disk formatting
Humans
Asymmetric Information
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Quality (business)
Scientific Publishing
Motivation
Organizations
Behavior
business.industry
Research
Biology and Life Sciences
Models, Theoretical
Information Economics
Communications
People and Places
Scientists
Population Groupings
business
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....dfbec3be51e2490d66102168e46904eb