Brickbat: Uncollegial Behavior

Darkbird77 / Dreamstime.com

Derek Pyne, an associate professor of economics at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada, says he has been effectively banned from campus for an academic paper he wrote. The topic of the paper was journals with low standards that charge authors fees to publish in them. While he did not name names, Pyne reported that most of his colleagues in the School of Business and Economics had published in such journals.

Comments

[Adans smith]

Looks like they proved his point

[BigT]

The vanity publications don't count for tenure (@ most places), so who cares?

[Slocum]

At 'Thompson Rivers U' apparently they were giving credit for such papers (though perhaps not for tenure). In blowing the whistle, Pyne was embarrassing not just his teaching colleagues, but also the administration who'd been playing along with the charade.

[Rossami]

I think that's not true (if it ever was). Some do but "most"? And even those institutions that filter in theory may not be doing so in practice.

To be blunt, given the multiple demonstrations across disciplines and journals of the failure at even the most prestigious journals to weed out obvious junk and sometimes fraudulent papers, I have serious doubts about the ability or dedication of administrators to distinguish between a vanity publication and a legitimate journal.

[Brandybuck]

Most places. And most fields. But there is no accreditation for journals. There's usually a standard (but now always) for peer review, but that doesn't mean much and it's easy to find vanity journals that offer "peer" review.

[Rat on a train]

the majority of the School of Business and Economics faculty had published in these open-access journals, which have low to nonexistent quality standards and charge authors fees
Peer reviewed is like consensus. It is a joke if your peers are hacks.

[Jerryskids]

The question is, was his paper published and, if so, where was it published? Joe's Journal of Edumacational Stuff?

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

It's claimed in the comments under the story that the scholl is undergoing an accreditation process. Access to government cash may be at stake. Getting between administration and fat stacks is never a good career move.

[This Machine Chips Fascists]

Scholl school whatever.

[Bubba Jones]

Wait. Unaccredited school has low standards for faculty?

SHOCKED

[RoyMo]

It is a real school, but in Canada there are no large multi province accredition bodies, each province is seperate, and they are trying to get accredited by an American body.

[Uncle Adolf?s Gas and Grill]

It's a pity more economics professors aren't banned from campus. Right along with all of the Grievance Studies professors.

[Earth Skeptic]

What do you call an economist who can't get a job in the real world?

[Agammamon]

Professor!

[Brandybuck]

There are good econ professors out there. Granted, not many, but they exist. Most econ professors are the lone shining light in many humanities departments.

[Earth Skeptic]

As often said, academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

[RoyMo]

Thompson Rivers, where Canadian academic careers go yo die while quietly murmuring: "Kamloops is still better than Prince George" and "there is nothing wrong with wearing a flannel shirt like a blazer..."

Thompson Rivers U is actually not that bad, but it helps to remember that it was founded as a correspondence school for rural BC, and in a sane world such a great idea would not have been abandoned so quickly.

Kamloops is a town where the local minor league hockey team felt the need to ban the local newspaper's sports reporter from attending games because he reported the truth about them"

[Fist of Etiquette]

Academic rigor requires it.

[Longtobefree]

All of the economists in the world, placed end to end, would still not reach a conclusion.