IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v48y2019i910.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the use of blockchain-based mechanisms to tackle academic misconduct

Author

Listed:
  • Mohan, Vijay

Abstract

Current incentives for publishing in academic journals result in a “winner-take-all” contest-like situation, with significant benefits for publishing research in quality journals. At the same time, empirically, we observe a greater incidence of research misconduct. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the nature and extent of the misconduct problem, to show why it may persist in the absence of conscious remedial action, and to discuss solutions that help lower the likelihood of spurious research escaping undetected. A simple model is constructed to emphasize that there exists the potential for a Prisoners’ Dilemma in academia, where scholars engage in misconduct at equilibrium (the Academic Dilemma). The paper then examines why conventional “centralized” regulatory solutions under the current system are not likely to succeed in resolving the problem, analyzes the properties of a decentralized solution utilizing blockchains, and argues that once incentive structures in academia are factored in, a permissioned blockchain may emerge as an effective middle-ground solution for mitigating scientific misconduct. In doing so, the paper highlights the importance of new technologies and recent advancements in Open Science for battling misconduct, and takes stock of the evolving nature of academic publishing.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohan, Vijay, 2019. "On the use of blockchain-based mechanisms to tackle academic misconduct," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:9:10
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2019.103805
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733319301258
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2019.103805?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Jeremy & Martin, Ben R., 2019. "Towards a taxonomy of research misconduct: The case of business school research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 414-427.
    2. Martin, Ben R., 2007. "Keeping plagiarism at bay--A salutary tale," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 905-911, September.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Philip Abelson, 1990. "Mechanisms for evaluating scientific information and the role of peer review," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 41(3), pages 216-222, April.
    5. Vincent Larivière & Stefanie Haustein & Philippe Mongeon, 2015. "The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Nicola Lacetera & Lorenzo Zirulia, 2011. "The Economics of Scientific Misconduct," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 568-603.
    7. Adrian Mulligan & Louise Hall & Ellen Raphael, 2013. "Peer review in a changing world: An international study measuring the attitudes of researchers," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 132-161, January.
    8. Hussinger, Katrin & Pellens, Maikel, 2019. "Guilt by association: How scientific misconduct harms prior collaborators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 516-530.
    9. Sandra L. Titus & James A. Wells & Lawrence J. Rhoades, 2008. "Repairing research integrity," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7198), pages 980-982, June.
    10. Gary A. Hoover, 2004. "Whose Line Is It? Plagiarism in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 487-493, June.
    11. Azoulay, Pierre & Bonatti, Alessandro & Krieger, Joshua L., 2017. "The career effects of scandal: Evidence from scientific retractions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1552-1569.
    12. Doh-Shin Jeon & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2010. "The Pricing of Academic Journals: A Two-Sided Market Perspective," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 222-255, May.
    13. Catherine Bobtcheff & Jérôme Bolte & Thomas Mariotti, 2017. "Researcher’s Dilemma," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(3), pages 969-1014.
    14. Adrian Mulligan & Louise Hall & Ellen Raphael, 2013. "Peer review in a changing world: An international study measuring the attitudes of researchers," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 132-161, January.
    15. Kiri, Bralind & Lacetera, Nicola & Zirulia, Lorenzo, 2018. "Above a swamp: A theory of high-quality scientific production," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 827-839.
    16. Gall, Thomas & Maniadis, Zacharias, 2019. "Evaluating solutions to the problem of false positives," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 506-515.
    17. Kjetil K Haugen & Tamás Nepusz & Andrea Petróczi, 2013. "The Multi-Player Performance-Enhancing Drug Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(5), pages 1-7, May.
    18. Partha, Dasgupta & David, Paul A., 1994. "Toward a new economics of science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 487-521, September.
    19. David B. Allison & Andrew W. Brown & Brandon J. George & Kathryn A. Kaiser, 2016. "Reproducibility: A tragedy of errors," Nature, Nature, vol. 530(7588), pages 27-29, February.
    20. Davidson, Sinclair & De Filippi, Primavera & Potts, Jason, 2018. "Blockchains and the economic institutions of capitalism," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 639-658, August.
    21. Arthur M Michalek & Alan D Hutson & Camille P Wicher & Donald L Trump, 2010. "The Costs and Underappreciated Consequences of Research Misconduct: A Case Study," Working Papers id:2919, eSocialSciences.
    22. Okada, Akira, 1993. "The Possibility of Cooperation in an n-Person Prisoners' Dilemma with Institutional Arrangements," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(3), pages 629-656, November.
    23. Gary Hoover, 2006. "A Game-Theoretic Model of Plagiarism," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 34(4), pages 449-454, December.
    24. Walter Enders & Gary Hoover, 2006. "Plagiarism in the Economics Profession: A Survey," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 92-107.
    25. McCabe Mark J & Snyder Christopher M., 2007. "Academic Journal Prices in a Digital Age: A Two-Sided Market Model," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-39, January.
    26. Alexander Dilger & Bernd Frick & Frank Tolsdorf, 2007. "Are Athletes Doped? Some Theoretical Arguments And Empirical Evidence," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(4), pages 604-615, October.
    27. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    28. Kjetil K. Haugen, 2004. "The Performance-Enhancing Drug Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(1), pages 67-86, February.
    29. Cox, Adam & Craig, Russell & Tourish, Dennis, 2018. "Retraction statements and research malpractice in economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 924-935.
    30. Jeremy Hall & Ben R. Martin, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Academic Misconduct: The Case of Business School Research," SPRU Working Paper Series 2019-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    31. Daniel G. Arce & Walter Enders & Gary A. Hoover, 2008. "Plagiarism And Its Impact On The Economics Profession," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 231-243, July.
    32. Horbach, S.P.J.M.(Serge) & Halffman, W.(Willem), 2019. "The extent and causes of academic text recycling or ‘self-plagiarism’," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 492-502.
    33. Mark J. McCabe & Christopher M. Snyder, 2005. "Open Access and Academic Journal Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 453-459, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Allen, Darcy W.E. & Berg, Chris & Markey-Towler, Brendan & Novak, Mikayla & Potts, Jason, 2020. "Blockchain and the evolution of institutional technologies: Implications for innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    2. Kyungmoo Heo & Sangyoon Yi, 2023. "(De)centralization in the governance of blockchain systems: cryptocurrency cases," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 12(3), pages 59-82, September.
    3. Bellavitis, Cristiano & Fisch, Christian & Wiklund, Johan, 2021. "A comprehensive review of the global development of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and their regulation," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).
    4. Khezr, Peyman & Mohan, Vijay, 2022. "The vexing but persistent problem of authorship misconduct in research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    5. Hubert Pun & Jayashankar M. Swaminathan & Pengwen Hou, 2021. "Blockchain Adoption for Combating Deceptive Counterfeits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(4), pages 864-882, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Khezr, Peyman & Mohan, Vijay, 2022. "The vexing but persistent problem of authorship misconduct in research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    2. Salandra, Rossella & Criscuolo, Paola & Salter, Ammon, 2021. "Directing scientists away from potentially biased publications: the role of systematic reviews in health care," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    3. Horton, Joanne & Krishna Kumar, Dhanya & Wood, Anthony, 2020. "Detecting academic fraud using Benford law: The case of Professor James Hunton," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(8).
    4. Necker, Sarah, 2014. "Scientific misbehavior in economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1747-1759.
    5. Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2022. "How research institutions can make the best of scandals – once they become unavoidable," Post-Print hal-03908837, HAL.
    6. Kiri, Bralind & Lacetera, Nicola & Zirulia, Lorenzo, 2018. "Above a swamp: A theory of high-quality scientific production," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 827-839.
    7. Salandra, Rossella, 2018. "Knowledge dissemination in clinical trials: Exploring influences of institutional support and type of innovation on selective reporting," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7), pages 1215-1228.
    8. Cox, Adam & Craig, Russell & Tourish, Dennis, 2018. "Retraction statements and research malpractice in economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 924-935.
    9. Anna Abalkina & Alexander Libman, 2020. "The real costs of plagiarism: Russian governors, plagiarized PhD theses, and infrastructure in Russian regions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2793-2820, December.
    10. Hussinger, Katrin & Pellens, Maikel, 2019. "Guilt by association: How scientific misconduct harms prior collaborators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 516-530.
    11. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Fecher, Benedikt & Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Gert G., 2019. "Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 62-83.
    12. Hopp, Christian & Hoover, Gary A., 2017. "How prevalent is academic misconduct in management research?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 73-81.
    13. Bruce Lewis & Jonathan Duchac & S. Douglas Beets, 2011. "An Academic Publisher’s Response to Plagiarism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 489-506, September.
    14. Philipp Kohlgruber & Christoph Kuzmics, 2017. "The distribution of article quality and inefficiencies in the market for scientific journals," Graz Economics Papers 2017-11, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    15. Le Maux, Benoît & Necker, Sarah & Rocaboy, Yvon, 2019. "Cheat or perish? A theory of scientific customs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    16. Oliver Budzinski & Thomas Grebel & Jens Wolling & Xijie Zhang, 2020. "Drivers of article processing charges in open access," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2185-2206, September.
    17. Furman, Jeffrey L. & Jensen, Kyle & Murray, Fiona, 2012. "Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 276-290.
    18. Haeussler, Carolin & Jiang, Lin & Thursby, Jerry & Thursby, Marie, 2014. "Specific and general information sharing among competing academic researchers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 465-475.
    19. Daniel G. Arce & Walter Enders & Gary A. Hoover, 2008. "Plagiarism And Its Impact On The Economics Profession," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 231-243, July.
    20. Jeremy Hall & Ben R. Martin, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Academic Misconduct: The Case of Business School Research," SPRU Working Paper Series 2019-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:9:10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.