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j7ake

He’s a rector because he has a high H index.

Nobody cares how you get to such an index unless you commit fraud.

I think technically creating citing cartels is not breaking any research rules. Unethical but within the rules.

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Forcing your subordinates to cite 20 of your unrelated papers is clear and obvious fraud.

In a poorly run academic insitutiin, this is commonplace. In an art school I worked at, all student work was required to credit the head of the school and their spouse (who also worked at the school).

> I think technically creating citing cartels is not breaking any research rules. Unethical but within the rules.

Not true, citation cartels are unethical research practices, there is no question about it.

There is also no "technically within the rules", because there are generally no specific rules.

Research rules essentially are "Don't do anything unethical", in a research ethics course you would then be given examples, like don't falsify data, dont misrepresented data, acknowledge previous work...

And while I believe the vast majority of academics follow the principles, because the rules are unspecified there is a gray zone (I believe that is a good thing we don't need to bog down scientific research by even more administration).

> Not true, citation cartels are unethical research practices, there is no question about it.

Perhaps this is obvious to others, but could you articulate the ethical principle that this violates?

Well I was trying to say that there are not clear cut don't do this or that, but instead act ethically. I would say citation stacking broadly falls under misrepresenting your research (as well as other research).

The authors artifically inflate the impact of their research thus misrepresenting how important it is. It is widely viewed as misconduct e.g. see these guidelines from T&F (most other journals would have something similar) https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-polici...

But why would the university want a guy like that as their rector? It tarnishes the name of the school.

> Corchado won the elections on May 7, after taking advantage of the strange surprise resignation of the previous rector, and presenting himself as the only candidate. He received the support of 6.5% of the 33,000 university members who were called to vote, with half of the faculty voting blank as a sign of protest.

Ran unopposed, elected on 6.5% of the vote.

Oh dear. They really need to change the rules such that losing against blank would postpone the appointment, or something.

How to blank votes count as protest in an election where there isn't a threshold?

Protesting would mean getting some random guy to also run and make him win

It’s academia. People join the academy so they can do research and teaching and absolutely nobody wants to do this crap administrative work. So often you get situations where bad people volunteer for a job that is “prestigious” but also involves shoveling manure, and you can’t convince other people to do the job instead.

A Rector like this makes some serious money. Shouldn't other staff members be jumping at the chance?? There should be lots of candidates, no?

Wait until you see how many districts for even important positions like state representative have candidates who run unopposed. You too could become a state representative if you moved to bum fuck nowhere and learned how to talk to boomers.

Nah, that's often how it works - sure, becoming a rector would mean a pay increase, but it would require you to become an administrator and stop doing what you love, most likely permanently (as the gap of being away from your field of research for multiple years makes it hard to become productive again - returning to active science is definitely possible, but rarely happens), switching your career for an entirely different one as far as day-to-day tasks go. And if you're already somewhat comfortable as a professor, why would you do that to yourself?

I've literally seen faculty 'drawing straws' as of who'll agree to be the sole candidate for a particular elected administrative position, because it's clear that one of them has to do it for the university to function, but no one wanted to.

> voting blank as a sign of protest.

This move will never cease to annoy the fuck out of me. Unless the election is somehow invalidated or recalled by the number of blank votes, it is completely counter-productive.

Would it be better if he got 100% of votes for him? He was the only candidate, nothing most people working there could go.

No, he's not a rector because he has a high H index - he's rector because he was the only candidate who applied, and if there was a competition, that factor is barely relevant, the candidate would get chosen by a faculty subjective vote, not according to score on some metric.

This is a local speciality. Sometimes, even outside.-

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