Universities just another product on the shelf?

The authors have argued that the increased reliance on quantitative metrics might create inequities and outcomes worse than the systems they replaced.

Specifically, if rewards are disproportionately given to individuals manipulating the metrics, well-known problems of the old subjective paradigms appear simple and solvable.

The damage owing to metrics is already apparent with 71 per cent of researchers in the US believing that it is possible to “game” and “cheat” their way to better evaluations at their institutions. It is worth noting that the manipulation of the evaluative metrics has been well-documented.

While universities are practically forcing their academics to publish in the so-called high-impact journals, recent exposé have revealed schemes by journals to manipulate impact factors, use of p-hacking by researchers to mine statistically significant and publishable results, rigging of the peer-review process itself and over-citation practices.

According to Edwards and Roy, the computer scientist Cyril Labbé at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble created Ike Antkare, a fictional character, who by virtue of publishing 102 computer-generated fake papers, achieved a stellar h-index of 94 on Google Scholar, surpassing that of Albert Einstein. Blogs describing how to inflate your hindex without committing outright fraud are, in fact, just a Google search away.

Apart from what Barbara Ellen has said about universities, “that universities are selling themselves just like shampoo”, universities the world over are overstressing the importance of quantifiable metrics and this has given rise to academic misconduct.

That being said, perhaps the time has come for customers to see universities just as another product on the shelf.