Sorry, but I find it comic that you think more published papers = higher standards, without considering the quality of the papers, in an environment in which just about any hack can get published - possibly due to the demand for more papers!
More importantly, you have still not answered the question: Why is it different now? Incentives changed? Why did incentives change? Why have administrators lowered standards to earn more money? Why didn’t they in the past? You need to dig deeper.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound condescending. Mm...I’m not sure how else to put it and still be honest. I appreciate your attempt to address the falling standards, which most of academia seems to encourage, or at least ignore.
No worries. I didn’t mean to suggest more papers meant more quality. It’s a higher standard in that some people (especially many current administrators) judge everything by looking at quantities, and number of papers published (or amount of grant money, or number of grants) is what they look at. It’s been true for a while, though, that some people think that way; there have long been cases where someone seems to rewrite one paper and have it published several times as if rewording the same point makes an original contribution. Maybe that has increased; I’m not sure. So why do I think things are different now such that incentives have changed? I wasn’t trying to answer that question, but as a first attempt, I’d suggest 2 things: (1) the professionalization of administration, so that fewer top administrators come from the faculty and (2) the various moves to make higher ed available to everyone—the change in student population or potential student population brought a change in the way higher ed advertised itself. Combined, we get the “customer model” or “corporatization” of higher ed.
Sorry, but I find it comic that you think more published papers = higher standards, without considering the quality of the papers, in an environment in which just about any hack can get published - possibly due to the demand for more papers!
More importantly, you have still not answered the question: Why is it different now? Incentives changed? Why did incentives change? Why have administrators lowered standards to earn more money? Why didn’t they in the past? You need to dig deeper.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound condescending. Mm...I’m not sure how else to put it and still be honest. I appreciate your attempt to address the falling standards, which most of academia seems to encourage, or at least ignore.
No worries. I didn’t mean to suggest more papers meant more quality. It’s a higher standard in that some people (especially many current administrators) judge everything by looking at quantities, and number of papers published (or amount of grant money, or number of grants) is what they look at. It’s been true for a while, though, that some people think that way; there have long been cases where someone seems to rewrite one paper and have it published several times as if rewording the same point makes an original contribution. Maybe that has increased; I’m not sure. So why do I think things are different now such that incentives have changed? I wasn’t trying to answer that question, but as a first attempt, I’d suggest 2 things: (1) the professionalization of administration, so that fewer top administrators come from the faculty and (2) the various moves to make higher ed available to everyone—the change in student population or potential student population brought a change in the way higher ed advertised itself. Combined, we get the “customer model” or “corporatization” of higher ed.