＂Academic Bubble＂： the unbearable lightness of academics

Prompt in this issueAfter the disclosure of a huge number of papers published by a dean of a university in three years, it aroused widespread concern in society: some people denounced it as "academic fraud" and others "complained for him". that

Some experts pointed out that the production of scientific research has its basic laws and must follow academic norms, which inevitably requires long-term academic accumulation. This phenomenon of articles and monographs flying all over the sky and academic achievements "dazzling" in a short period of time belongs to a typical "academic bubble", which is harmful to the prosperity and development of academic undertakings. What is the reason for the formation of "academic bubble"? What kind of harm does it have? What concrete measures should we take to curb this? Around these problems, the reporter interviewed relevant experts.

One-sided quantitative academic evaluation mechanism is hard to blame

In recent years, there has been a common phenomenon in the academic circles in China, that is, the number of academic achievements of some academic researchers has shown an "explosive" growth compared with their predecessors: there are hundreds of academic papers, dozens of academic works and millions of words of scientific research achievements. So that the late Professor Zhong Jingwen, the father of China folklore, heard that some scholars had published more than 100 papers at a meeting before his death, and said with such emotion: "Oh, my God! I have been scribbling articles since I was eleven or twelve years old. Up to now, you asked me how many articles can be counted as papers. I can’t count five, maybe three. "

"This phenomenon of’ producing’ hundreds of academic papers, dozens of academic works and millions of words of scientific research results is a typical academic bubble." Professor Guo Shiyou, director of the Institute of History of China University of Political Science and Law and doctoral supervisor, said, "Whether academic research and its scientific research achievements have academic value has its basic criteria, that is, whether you have surpassed the contributions of predecessors and created valuable new knowledge, new ideas, new theories and new paradigms. If you leave these criteria, no matter how many’ imperial masterpieces’ you have published and how many’ rewarding achievements’ you have won, it is worthless from an academic point of view and is creating an academic bubble. "

Then, what is the reason for the phenomenon that articles and monographs are flying all over the sky and academic achievements are "dazzling" in a short period of time?

Zheng Guangyong, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, believes that academic bubbles are common, which are nothing more than personal and social reasons. Personally, people often use the phrase "shouldering morality with iron shoulders and writing articles skillfully" to evaluate those intellectuals who have both talent, academic conscience and social responsibility. Nowadays, people who create academic bubbles have neither the academic conscience and social responsibility of "shouldering morality" nor the academic research ability of "writing articles skillfully", so they have to create academic bubbles in order to be promoted. The main reason is the society, which provides the conditions for creating bubbles. First, the market mechanism has reached the point where it is pervasive. We emphasize that Industry-University-Research is a one-stop train, so that academic research results can be transformed into productive forces as soon as possible, which is of course true. However, it is obviously impossible to adopt this model for some basic research, especially the research of philosophy and social sciences. Second, the evaluation mechanism of academic research results is not perfect. Many people think that quantitative indicators are easy to grasp, but the level of academic research achievements, especially those in philosophy and social sciences, is difficult to consider, so it has become a common practice to substitute quantity for quality.

"It is indeed time to reflect on this phenomenon." Professor Yang Yusheng, director of the Center for American Politics and Law Studies at China University of Political Science and Law, said in an interview, "At present, the quantitative evaluation mechanism of one-sided pursuit of quantity is hard to blame for creating academic bubbles. From universities to education administrative departments to various university rankings, blindly pursue quantity, especially the number of articles published in so-called SCI, SSCI and CSSCI source journals, regardless of academic quality; In addition, we should also pay enough attention to the consequences of "the whole people engage in academics." All colleges and universities, whether they have the basic scientific research conditions or not, blindly require teachers to publish so-called scientific research results, and further strengthen the oppressive mechanism of pursuing the publication of works with the leverage of academic title evaluation, awards, projects and talent selection, thus concocting many low-level repetitive academic bubbles. "

The academic bubble is anti-academic in nature.

A simple fact that can’t be ignored is that although there is a certain internal relationship between academic bubble and academic plagiarism, there are also obvious differences. The latter belongs to a typical academic anomie. As long as we grasp conclusive evidence, we can "be what it is, not what it is" and carry out targeted academic criticism and punishment. Although the academic bubble is a combination of some "platitudes and patchwork" articles, it is difficult to grasp its handle from the perspective of academic norms, and it is even more difficult to regulate and punish it.

"Although the academic bubble is difficult to find a basis for punishment, its harm to the prosperity and development of academic undertakings should attract enough attention from the whole society." Professor Guo Shiyou believes that "academic plagiarism and academic corruption are harmful, but they are not terrible, because we have corresponding academic criticism and academic norms to correct them. But the chronic disease that really endangers academic career and is difficult to eradicate is academic bubble. The reason for this is that the academic bubble is to create academic false prosperity by producing academic’ garbage’, to stifle academic vitality with academic banner, and to trample academic norms under the guise of academic norms. It not only seriously consumes scarce academic resources and makes academic achievements mixed, but also easily leads to’ bad money drives good money’ and a vicious circle. In the end, it will corrupt the academic atmosphere, destroy academic dignity and undermine academic reputation. "

"The academic bubble and the academic garbage it overflows are not conducive to the prosperity and development of academic undertakings, but also to the civilization and progress of society. It is anti-academic in nature, and we should really be vigilant about its harm." In an interview with reporters, Professor Yang Yusheng said, "Specifically, its harm is mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, it causes low-level redundant construction, which wastes a lot of human, material and academic resources in the country for no reason; The second is to form vicious competition in academic circles, destroy academic ecological environment and ruin academic social image; Third, it has a negative impact on the growth of the younger generation of students; The fourth is not conducive to establishing China’s international academic image and academic status. "

"The academic bubble fundamentally violates the guiding ideology of the party and the government to prosper academic undertakings, which is harmful not only to academic research itself, but also to the whole society." Dr. Zheng Guangyong believes, "First of all, the impetuous academic atmosphere formed by the academic bubble is easy to mislead the academic research path of young intellectuals. Academic research should have long-term academic accumulation, otherwise it will be difficult to continue for a long time. If young intellectuals are impetuous just after they set foot on the road of academic research, it is difficult to achieve real academic results. Secondly, the academic bubble harms the society and the country. In the tradition of China, people often regard intellectuals with a strong sense of social responsibility as the embodiment of moral education. If the academic bubble permeates the society, it will not only affect the image of intellectuals, but also affect the social atmosphere. The academic bubble will certainly not cultivate competitive talents, and the promotion of national strength cannot be achieved by a group of’ paper tigers’ with only quantity but no quality. If we don’t pay attention to managing the academic bubble, it is irresponsible for the cause of modernization. "

It is urgent to reform the old and rigid quantitative evaluation system.

Professor Jiang Shusheng, member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and president of Nanjing University, once said in the media that some professors and doctoral supervisors who have "works of equal stature" can publish several sets of books a year, and they often publish "series books", but people in the industry scoff at them because some of these "works" are blatantly stolen, and some are used to make a splash and cheat the world. The professor’s doctoral supervisor degenerated into a literary copy. This kind of low-level repeated publication has only the proliferation of quantity without the improvement of quality, and only the prosperity of appearance without original achievements. It is a typical academic bubble. He went on to say that the research mentality of quick success and instant benefit will inevitably lead to a large number of books, papers and achievements, and the prevalence of defective products and counterfeiting in academic circles will inevitably lead to academic faults and even academic crises. The deterioration of this style of study will inevitably affect students. The proliferation of this problem is also related to our long-term emphasis on quantity over quality and lax examination and assessment. It is also urgent to reform the outdated and rigid quantitative assessment system.

In this regard, Professor Yang Yusheng also agrees that to effectively curb the emergence and spread of academic bubbles, the whole society needs extensive participation. First of all, all scholars should be aware of the sanctity of learning and the dignity of learning, starting from academic self-discipline, starting from caring for their academic image, and starting from safeguarding the dignity of academic communities; Secondly, it is necessary to change the current reward mode of material stimulation for publishing articles; Thirdly, universities, especially the administrative departments of education, have effectively changed the orientation of quantitative policies and put the awareness and strategy of quality products into practice; Finally, famous universities, especially those invested and built by the National 985 Project, and key research bases of humanities and social sciences of the Ministry of Education, should play an exemplary role and strive to produce excellent products and masterpieces.

"To truly curb the academic bubble from the source and eliminate its harm, we must comprehensively manage the current academic environment." Professor Guo Shiyou said in an interview with reporters, "First of all, we should strengthen the professional ethics education of academic practitioners and set up an academic ethics Committee; Secondly, we should reasonably limit the enrollment scale of graduate students, especially doctoral students, and do not force graduate students to publish their dissertations before completing their dissertations. We should make clear a basic understanding: the main or even the only basis for awarding degrees is the dissertations themselves; Thirdly, we should reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of engineering management model for academic management, put an end to digital competitions such as the number of papers, monographs and words of achievements, strengthen quality awareness, take the representative works of authors as the main basis to confirm the academic level of authors, reduce the number of appraisal activities and prolong the time for academic achievements to be tested by academic and social practice. Finally, we should strengthen academic criticism and public opinion supervision, intensify the punishment of plagiarism, and safeguard academic dignity. It is suggested that the Ministry of Education or people with lofty ideals should take the lead and refer to the successful experience of Tur-nitin website, which is specialized in cracking down on plagiarism in the University of California (Berkeley), to create and gradually improve a Chinese website with detection and monitoring functions, make full use of the technological advantages of the Internet, strengthen the technical detection of graduate students’ homework, academic papers, dissertations and even academic achievements, effectively advocate academic norms and put an end to plagiarism. "