Academics have this scheme to rank different universities — many of them revolve around publication metrics, which is one entirely reasonable way to assess one part of the research enterprise. Unfortunately, if a university is ranked by how many publications are produced by affiliated faculty, one way to jack up the numbers is to buy nominal affiliations — pay researchers with successful publishing careers to put their university’s name on their CVs. All it takes is lots and lots of money.
King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Saudi Arabia is playing that game. They are contacting highly ranked researchers, offering them a pile of cash, and asking them to list KAU as one of their academic affiliations.
UC Davis professor Jonathan Eisen also contacted Pachter. Almost a year ago, Eisen had been solicited by KAU but ultimately declined the offer.
Most researchers, such as Eisen, were initially contacted by KAU via email and asked if they would like to join the university’s faculty as a “distinguished adjunct professor.” Eisen traded emails with several people at KAU, trying to figure out what the catch was.
“I tried to get them to explain what they were trying to do,” Eisen said. “It smelled really off.”
KAU offered him $72,000 per year and free business-class airfare and five-star hotel stays for him to visit KAU in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to an email sent to Eisen by KAU. In exchange, Eisen was told he would be expected to work on collaborations with KAU local researchers and also update his Thomson Reuters’ highly cited researcher listing to include a KAU affiliation. He would also be expected to occasionally publish some scientific journal articles with the Saudi university’s name attached.
So, basically, free money for sticking KAU’s name in a paper. I have to respect all the people with the integrity to turn that down, like Eisen did. Unfortunately, not everyone rejected them (and it’s also kind of hard to blame them — the life of a college professor rarely provides opportunities to get wealthy), and the stratagem worked.
Even more surprising, though, was that a little-known university in Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz University, or KAU, ranked seventh in the world in mathematics — despite the fact that it didn’t have a doctorate program in math until two years ago.
Who knew you could just buy an academic reputation?
This merely shows that the ranking system is not a reliable measure of how good or bad an academic department is.
I’m also not entirely sure why it’s all that unethical. The professor is paid, given a position and title at the university, and for that they’re expected to collaborate with other colleagues at the university, and list their affiliation with it.
Of COURSE it’s KAU buying a reputation,but it’s only truly unethical if the work these people do is compromised by their affiliation. If the papers they publish have glaring conflicts of interest, or are shown to be fraudulent in some way,that is a problem.
The simple fact that KAU is willing (and able) to compensate highly talented professors to lend their names to the university isn’t. It merely shows how little the US universities actually value them.
I mean, it’s not like a public University president taking a position on the Board of Directors of a private college doing business in her state http://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/ua-president-ann-weaver-hart-takes-job-with-devry-school/article_dc6ef673-f8d5-5500-b960-cbc06c7b8aa9.html (purely coincidentally she’s getting about $70,000 from them, too)
Capitalism, baby, capitalism!
Well I think buying has happened before but usually by getting top people to be actual full professors on site and giving them the leeway to develop their department. In other words the difference between buying cut flowers which will die quickly or flowers to be planted out in hopes they will last for years and will produce seedlings. Saudi Arabia does seem to be trying the second method with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). BTW the list of “distinguished scientists” can be found at http://dsc.kau.edu.sa/Content.aspx?Site_ID=302015&lng=en&cid=248887
I think Saudi Arabia has some serious problems before it can develop good universities. First is academic freedom given the control its conservative ulema (and the king) has over expression in the country. Second is the discrimination against women. The university actually has a female majority among its students; however, they are completely segregated (two separate campuses). Even if women are educated (and many are), the job opportunities are not there (and opportunities abroad are entirely dependent on whether their father, husband, or male guardian allows it).
Another incident from 10 years back about this university which contracted with Virginia Tech to teach some classes at Virginia Tech to some of its people and then had the classes segregated by gender.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-10-va-tech-separates_x.htm
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2005/08/2005-910.html
http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2005/03/2005-603.html
I’m going to go watch Bill Hicks’ bit about marketing until I feel better.
I find what the Saudis are doing to be just a little bit crazy.
I understand that want to be considered an important country not just an oil rich one. They know that the oil will not last forever and the rulers are educated as are many of the rest of the population. To be considered important they aspired to have a world class university. A world class university is not compatible being run by an ultra-conservative religious administration.
I see no indication that a highly educated society is in any way compatible with an archaic monarchy nor an authoritarian government for that matter.
uncle frogy
I see no indication that a highly educated society is in any way compatible with an archaic monarchy nor an authoritarian government for that matter.
It’s been that way for some time. When I was there, someone told me that SA has one of the most advanced degrees granted to women, worldwide. Too bad they aren’t allowed to do anything with them.
Amazing story. Seeing you didn’t link the original story, it’s at http://www.dailycal.org/2014/12/05/citations-sale/
Its from December 2014; has there been a recent update making our newly newsworthy, or is it just something you’ve only just come across yourself?
As an academic myself, part of me wishes they’d pay *me* $72,000 a year, ethics be damned. Much respect to those who were able to refuse; better people than I am, all.
People have been buying academic reputations forever. Usually though they hire great researchers outright. Catherine the Great did this in Russia where Euler did most of his work. Frederick the Great hired him and brought him to Berlin, but Voltaire, another FtG hire, made so much fun of him for being a nerd that he moved back to Russia. I’m sure the idea was old before then. Some ruler or another pumped a pile of shekels into turning Hellenic Alexandria into an academic center. The resident scholars needed to be paid and that library meant paying scribes to copy scrolls. Then there were those libraries, zoos, gardens and observatorie in Sumeria and Babylon. Not all of the talent was locally grown.
My favorite recent story was back in 2004 when William Tozer a mathematician with an Erdos number of 4 auctioned off, on eBay, the opportunity to co-author a paper which would give the new author an Erdos number of 5. This probably only made sense to mathematicians who place a value of having an Erdos number which is the number of co-authorship links between oneself and the noted and extremely prolific mathematician Erdos. (He did significant work on 1,500 in a field where a lifetime output of 50 papers is considered prolific.)
I have nothing against people buying academic reputations. The late 19th century saw rash of businessmen, generally robber-barons, hiring European talent to teach at their newly founded American universities. (e.g. Stanford, Babson, WPI – OK, the quality varied.) The mid-20th century had many states making similar hires for their flagship universities back before spending good taxpayer money on academics (or anything else except weapons for that matter) became unfashionable.
I do have a good number of things against Saudi Arabia, but that’s another matter.
Wait wait wait wait WAIT
The offer didn’t include teaching?
I mean, “We want to create a prestigious university, let’s promise attractive perks to teachers from more prestigious universities so they can come here and teach our students and improve our countries academic level” that I can understand, but from the text, it seems that the KAU wasn’t interested in Eisen’s academic prowess, didn’t intend to have him teach their students, but just add the university’s seal next to his signature.
Did I get that right? Because if I did, that’s one twisted attempt to buy prestige.
To play the devil’s advocate, how is this really different from hiring regular faculty? Except you don’t expect them to be physically there… You pay them and they do research for you and in your name. That’s what most universities do in some way…
Correct which is why this is about appearance and not actually building a great university. Stanford btw didn’t break into the big leagues until some 60+ years after its founding.
I don’t see how this can be a good deal for anyone to take up. Sure, there’s the money but putting the name of a Daesh run institution (and one named after a dictator no less) on your CV cannot be good for your career.
kaleberg@7: “William Tozer a mathematician with an Erdos number of 4 auctioned off, on eBay, the opportunity to co-author a paper which would give the new author an Erdos number of 5.”
Oh, hell, mathematicians with Erdős number 4 are a dime a dozen (according to https://wwwp.oakland.edu/enp/trivia/, there were 83,642 as of 2004); my Erdős number is 4. But although some spare cash is always nice, I don’t think I’d do what Tozier [note spelling] did (or tried to do).
Having lived for some time in the region and having Saudi friends, we’ll suffice it to say that the attitude is unsurprising.
First, there’s the matter of prestige, even if rented from others, in one’s own educational system.
Then, there’s personal prestige in doing the very same thing in every other area.
My closest Saudi friend regaled me of how many Saudis even pay for someone else to play their video games, all to have a higher rating, then they’ll play. Poorly.
Frequently, businesses are run as a pastime, resulting in, “is all finished” when a product runs out. No reorder, although some better sellers will occasionally reorder, the latter are rare and treasured.
Still, hospitality has its own high form, as hospitality is a cultural mandate for all desert peoples.