Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26364213›Full record

ArticleScience and engineering ethics2016

Analyzing the Publish-or-Perish Paradigm with Game Theory: The Prisoner's Dilemma and a Possible Escape.

T C Erren, D M Shaw, P Morfeld

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Article in Science and engineering ethics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

T C ErrenInstitute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 61, 50938, Cologne, Germany. tim.erren@uni-koeln.de.
D M ShawInstitute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
P MorfeldInstitute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 61, 50938, Cologne, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The publish-or-perish paradigm is a prevailing facet of science. We apply game theory to show that, under rather weak assumptions, this publication scenario takes the form of a prisoner's dilemma, which constitutes a substantial obstacle to beneficial delayed publication of more complete results. One way of avoiding this obstacle while allowing researchers to establish priority of discoveries would be an updated "pli cacheté", a sealed envelope concept from the 1700s. We describe institutional rules that could additionally favour high-quality work and publications and provide examples of such policies that are already in place. Our analysis should be extended to other publication scenarios and the role of other stakeholders such as scientific journals or sponsors.

Indexed as

Game TheoryPrisoner DilemmaPublishingGame theoryPli cachetéPriorityPrisoner’s dilemmaPublish-or perishQuality

Identifiers

PMID26364213

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.