Google Scholar is manipulatable
2024/02/07 by Hazem Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Hazem, Fengyuan Liu +5 · 30 voices · 2 citations
Medicine · Decision Sciences · #Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education #Academic Publishing and Open Access
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2402.04607
Abstract
Citations are widely considered in scientists' evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts. While previous literature has examined self-citations and citation cartels, it remains unclear whether scientists can purchase citations. Here, we compile a dataset of ~1.6 million profiles on Google Scholar to examine instances of citation fraud on the platform. We survey faculty at highly-ranked universities, and confirm that Google Scholar is widely used when evaluating scientists. Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. These findings provide conclusive evidence that citations can be bought in bulk, and highlight the need to look beyond citation counts.
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Discussions
- Nice. arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 161 points, 5 comments]
- Citations can be bought, and people buy them; call me completely unsurprised #OverlyHonestEditor We're in a dire need of tools detecting this before research is out (but if you're here to tell me you [bsky, 10 points, 0 comments]
- “Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations .” #Medlibs [bsky, 8 points, 0 comments]
- Google scholar is a great tool for the right user, just terrible for someone who indiscriminately takes seriously citation counts arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 6 points, 1 comments]
- A how to guide on citation fraud: "Google Scholar is manipulatable" arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]
- Who would've thought that google scholar was manipulatable arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
- The state of academic (mis)citations - ArXiV arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 🧪 [bsky, 4 points, 2 comments]
- Ce n’est pas le sujet de fond mais j’ajouterai que l’index Google scholar est le pire indice pour mesurer quoi que ce soit sur les chercheurs. Il est hautement manipulable, arxiv.org/pdf/2402.04607 [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
- Citation counts are not a good way to evaluate authors, especially as we now know they can be bought. Thanks @pvanheus.bsky.social for pointing to this. arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
- I understand the pressure that leads to this. And also... y'all I do not have TIME or ENERGY for this nonsense. arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
- Google Scholar is Manipulatable (2024) [hn, 3 points, 0 comments]
- "Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations." [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]
- Did you think that citations were a reliable measure of academic impact? #academia Think again: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.04607 [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Google Scholar Is Manipulatable [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Google Scholar Is Manipulatable [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
- adding onto this google scholar issues aren’t limited to generated fake papers this study also investigates google scholar citation count manipulation by posting fake papers & paying services to do [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Source: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.04607 [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- The Sting "Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Google Scholar Is Manipulatable [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
- A paper examines citation fraud services that help scholars boost their citations on Google Scholar! arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Apparently, Google Scholar can be manipulated to get artificially high citation number and H-index. Link to working paper: arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 #Academic #EconSky #Science #Publication #Citation [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- voire manipulations possibles: arxiv.org/pdf/2402.04607 S’appuyer là-dessus pour affirmer une forme de supériorité intellectuelle, c’est oublier que la science se construit dans le dialogue, pas dans [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- Another form of citation manipulation: "We discovered an extremely short paper consisting of just three pages of double-spaced text, yet has a bibliography consisting of over 200 references, 167 of wh [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- A paper claims that Google Scholar is manipulatable. Why? The authors purchased 50 citations (for a fictional author). arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- Citations are cheap! We need to put greater emphasis on reusing somebody's work (data, code, workflows) instead of just citing it arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
- "Here, we compile a dataset of ~1.6 million profiles on Google Scholar to examine instances of citation fraud on the platform...Intrigued by a citation-boosting service...we contacted the service whil [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Fascinating paper for those involved in bibliometrics... arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Link to the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
- citing my source (I am not one of the authors ;) arxiv.org/pdf/2402.046... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Ya no queda nadie confiable hasta Google Scholar miente, cuando alguien me tire encima sus citaciones en Google Scholar ahora tendré serias dudas arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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