Araştırma Makalesi
BibTex RIS Kaynak Göster

Akademide Metrik Kültür Erozyonu ve Yükselen Anomaliler

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 8 Sayı: 3, 380 - 392, 20.09.2025
https://doi.org/10.32329/uad.1670503

Öz

Özet: Goodhart Yasasına göre bir ölçü hedef haline geldiğinde, iyi bir ölçü olmaktan çıkar. Üniversiteler, küresel akademik yayıncılık oligopolünün yönettiği metrik kültür endüstrisine teslim olmuş görünmektedir. Bu endüstri, neoliberal piyasa mantığıyla, sorgulanmadan kabullenilmiş normatif gücü elinde bulunduran küresel akademik yayıncılık devlerinin eliyle ve üniversitelerin gönüllü desteğiyle akademik derinliği hızla değersizleştirmektedir. Lacan ve Žižek dilinde bu akademik yayıncılık oligopolü büyük Diğer’i temsil eder. Akademik performans değerlendirme ölçütlerinin bu küresel yayıncıların tekelindeki metriklere aşırı bağımlılığı, akademide bilimsel derinlik, akademik kültür, yetiştirme, topluma katkı ve en önemlisi de nitelikli eğitimin gölgede kalmasına neden olmaktadır. Bu durum, metriklerin dayattığı baskıya direnen akademisyenleri görünmez hale getirirken, Covid-19 ve yapay zekâ gibi günün trend konularında hiper üretken bir profil sergileyen ve birkaç yılda Nobel ödüllü bilim insanlarından daha fazla atıfa ulaşan TT anomalisini akademinin yeni yıldızı haline getirmiştir. Dahası, metrik ve etik arasında sıkışan editör ikilemi ve çarkın öğüttüğü mağdur yazar anomalilerinde de artış görünmektedir. Metrik türbülansındaki akademi bilimsel yenilik ve derinlikten uzak, yüzeysel üretimi teşvik eden, akademik erozyonun hızla yayıldığı bir görüntü sergilemektedir. Öbür tarafta, dünyayı değiştiren en önemli bilimsel çalışmalar (yapay zekâ modelleri, kuantum algoritmaları, RNA aşı teknolojileri, blokzincir protokolleri ve daha fazlası) arXiv ve Github gibi açık kaynak ve açık erişim platformlarda yayınlanmaktadır. Bu makalede, metrik kültürün yol açtığı erozyon ve onun sonucu olan anomaliler Lacanian kuramın eleştirel felsefesine dayalı tartışılmıştır. Metrik kültür erozyonuna karşı yavaş bilim hareketi gibi küresel çözüm önerilerinin yanında Türkiye’de geliştirilen DergiPark ve TR Dizin gibi ulusal akademik yayıncılık altyapıları ile Ulakbim’in atıf niyetleri analizi gibi girişimlerin önemi ortaya konmuştur. Makalede sunulan argümanlar ve incelenen anomaliler yükseköğretim politikalarının gözden geçirilmesi için de önemli ipuçları sunmaktadır.

Kaynakça

  • Abduh, A. J. (2022). Hyperprolific authors in the top 2% scientists of the world. Authorea Preprints.
  • Abduh, A. J. (2023). A critical analysis of the world’s top 2% most influential scientists: Examining the limitations and biases of highly cited researchers lists. Authorea Preprints.
  • Alvesson, M., & Gabriel, Y. (2013). Beyond formulaic research: In praise of greater diversity in organizational research and publications. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2012.0327
  • Beer, D. (2016). Metric power. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55649-3
  • Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y., & Jordan, M. I. (2003). Latent Dirichlet allocation. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 3, 993–1022.
  • Bourdieu, P. (2001). Language and symbolic power (J. B. Thompson, Ed., G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
  • Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1999). On the cunning of imperialist reason. Theory, Culture & Society, 16(1), 41–58.
  • Bozeman, B., & Corley, E. (2004). Scientists’ collaboration strategies: Implications for scientific and technical human capital. Research Policy, 33(4), 599–616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.01.008
  • Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02077.x
  • Brito, A. G. C. D., Quoniam, L., & Mena-Chalco, J. P. (2016). Investigation of the Lattes Platform by subject: A methodology proposal. Transinformação, 28, 77-86.
  • Chen, H., Bornmann, L. & Bu, Y. (2025). Dynamic disruption index across citation and cited references windows: Recommendations for thresholds in research evaluation. arXiv preprint. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.07828
  • Demir, S. B. (2018). Predatory journals: Who publishes in them and why? Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1296–1311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.10.008
  • DORA. (2013). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Retrieved from https://sfdora.org
  • Fong, E. A., & Wilhite, A. W. (2017). Authorship and citation manipulation in academic research. PLoS ONE, 12(12), e0187394. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187394
  • Frith, U. (2020). Fast lane to slow science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(1), 1–2.
  • Fırat, M. (2020). Açık Bilim: Zamanı Gelmiş Paradigma. Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık.
  • Goodell, R. (1977). The visible scientists. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
  • Bordignon, F., Chaignon, L., & Egret, D. (2023). Promoting narrative CVs to improve research evaluation? A review of opinion pieces and experiments. Research Evaluation, 32(2), 313-320. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvad013
  • Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520(7548), 429–431. https://doi.org/10.1038/520429a
  • Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2024). August 2024 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”. Elsevier Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw.7
  • Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2018). Meta-research: Why research on research matters. PLOS Biology, 16(3), e2005468. Lacan, J. (2011). The seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XVI: From an Other to the other: 1968-1969.
  • Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PloS One, 10(6), e0127502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502
  • Lloyd, M., & Ordorika, I. (2021). International university rankings as cultural imperialism: Implications for the Global South. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 25–45). University of Toronto Press.
  • Lutz, J. F. (2012). Slow science. Nature Chemistry, 4, 588–589. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1415
  • Miranda, R., & Garcia-Carpintero, E. (2018). Overcitation and overrepresentation of review papers in the most cited papers. Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1015–1030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.08.006
  • Müller, R. (2014). Racing for what? Anticipation and acceleration in the work and career practices of academic life science postdocs. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-15.3.2186
  • Ordorika, I., & Lloyd, M. (2015). University rankings and accountability. Global Perspectives on Higher Education. Parchomovsky, G. (2000). Publish or perish. Michigan Law Review, 98(4), 926–952.
  • Pavlinek, M., & Podgorelec, V. (2017). Text classification method based on self-training and LDA topic models. Expert Systems with Applications, 80, 83-93.
  • Porter, A., & Rafols, I. (2009). Is science becoming more interdisciplinary? Measuring and mapping six research fields over time. Scientometrics, 81(3), 719-745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2197-2
  • Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (2012). University rankings and the contest for state power. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 97–113). University of Toronto Press.
  • Richardson, J., & Zikic, J. (2007). The darker side of an international academic career. Career Development International, 12(2), 164–186. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430710733654
  • Rödder, S. (2012). The Ambivalence of Visible Scientists. In: Rödder, S., Franzen, M., Weingart, P. (eds) The Sciences’ Media Connection –Public Communication and its Repercussions. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2085-5_8
  • Söderlind, J. (2020). A metric culture in academia: The influence of performance measurement on the academic culture of Swedish universities (Doctoral dissertation). Kungliga Tekniska högskolan.
  • Stack, M., & Mazawi, A. E. (2021). Beyond rankings and impact factors. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 223–242). University of Toronto Press.
  • Stengers, I. (2018). Another science is possible: A manifesto for slow science. Boston: Polity Press.
  • Tennant, J. P., Waldner, F., Jacques, D. C., Masuzzo, P., Collister, L. B., & Hartgerink, C. H. (2016). The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: An evidence-based review. F1000Research, 5, 632. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8460.3
  • Tüfekci, Z. (2015). Algorithmic harms beyond Facebook and Google: Emergent challenges of computational agency. Colo. Tech. LJ, 13, 203.
  • van der Weijden, I., Teelken, C., de Boer, M., & Drost, M. (2022). Talent management in academia: Performance systems and HR practices. Higher Education Policy, 35(2), 371–394. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-022-00277-x
  • Wilsdon, J., Allen, L., Belfiore, E., Campbell, P., Curry, S., Hill, S., Jones, R., & The Metric Tide Review Group. (2015). The metric tide: Report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. Higher Education Funding Council for England.
  • Yeşilbaş Özenç, Y. (2025). Yükseköğretimde Kalite. Journal of University Research, 8(1), 149-149. Zizek, S. (2011). How to read Lacan. Granta Books.

Metric Culture Erosion and Rising Anomalies in Academy

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 8 Sayı: 3, 380 - 392, 20.09.2025
https://doi.org/10.32329/uad.1670503

Öz

Goodhart's Law states that when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric. Universities seem to have surrendered to the metric culture industry run by the global academic publishing oligopoly. This industry devalues academic depth not only through neoliberal market logic but also through the voluntary support of universities and global academic publishing giants who wield unquestioned normative power. In Lacan and Žižek’s language, this academic publishing oligopoly is called the Big Other. The over-dependence of academic performance evaluation criteria on metrics monopolized by these global publishers leads to the overshadowing of scientific depth, academic culture, contribution to society, and, most importantly quality education. While this situation renders academics who resist the pressure imposed by metrics invisible, it elevates the TT anomaly, characterized by a hyper-productive profile in trending topics such as Covid-19 and artificial intelligence, to prominence. This anomaly achieves more citations than Nobel laureates within a few years, becoming the new luminary of academia. Moreover, the dilemma of editors caught between metrics and ethics and the anomalies of victimized authors being grinded by the wheel are also on the rise. The academy of metric turbulence is far from scientific innovation and depth, encourages superficial production, and exhibits an image in which academic erosion is spreading rapidly. On the other hand, the most important world-changing scientific work (artificial intelligence models, quantum algorithms, RNA vaccine technologies, blockchain protocols, and more) is published on open source and open access platforms such as arXiv and Github. In this article, the erosion of metric culture and its resulting anomalies are discussed based on the critical philosophy of Lacanian theory. The importance of global solutions to the erosion of metric culture, such as the slow science movement, as well as national academic publishing platforms developed in Turkey, such as DergiPark, TR Index, and Ulakbim's citation intentions analysis are presented. The arguments presented in this article and the anomalies analyzed provide important clues for the revision of higher education policies.

Kaynakça

  • Abduh, A. J. (2022). Hyperprolific authors in the top 2% scientists of the world. Authorea Preprints.
  • Abduh, A. J. (2023). A critical analysis of the world’s top 2% most influential scientists: Examining the limitations and biases of highly cited researchers lists. Authorea Preprints.
  • Alvesson, M., & Gabriel, Y. (2013). Beyond formulaic research: In praise of greater diversity in organizational research and publications. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(2), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2012.0327
  • Beer, D. (2016). Metric power. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55649-3
  • Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y., & Jordan, M. I. (2003). Latent Dirichlet allocation. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 3, 993–1022.
  • Bourdieu, P. (2001). Language and symbolic power (J. B. Thompson, Ed., G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
  • Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1999). On the cunning of imperialist reason. Theory, Culture & Society, 16(1), 41–58.
  • Bozeman, B., & Corley, E. (2004). Scientists’ collaboration strategies: Implications for scientific and technical human capital. Research Policy, 33(4), 599–616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.01.008
  • Burrows, R. (2012). Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 355–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02077.x
  • Brito, A. G. C. D., Quoniam, L., & Mena-Chalco, J. P. (2016). Investigation of the Lattes Platform by subject: A methodology proposal. Transinformação, 28, 77-86.
  • Chen, H., Bornmann, L. & Bu, Y. (2025). Dynamic disruption index across citation and cited references windows: Recommendations for thresholds in research evaluation. arXiv preprint. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.07828
  • Demir, S. B. (2018). Predatory journals: Who publishes in them and why? Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1296–1311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.10.008
  • DORA. (2013). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Retrieved from https://sfdora.org
  • Fong, E. A., & Wilhite, A. W. (2017). Authorship and citation manipulation in academic research. PLoS ONE, 12(12), e0187394. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187394
  • Frith, U. (2020). Fast lane to slow science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(1), 1–2.
  • Fırat, M. (2020). Açık Bilim: Zamanı Gelmiş Paradigma. Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık.
  • Goodell, R. (1977). The visible scientists. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
  • Bordignon, F., Chaignon, L., & Egret, D. (2023). Promoting narrative CVs to improve research evaluation? A review of opinion pieces and experiments. Research Evaluation, 32(2), 313-320. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvad013
  • Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520(7548), 429–431. https://doi.org/10.1038/520429a
  • Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2024). August 2024 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”. Elsevier Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw.7
  • Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2018). Meta-research: Why research on research matters. PLOS Biology, 16(3), e2005468. Lacan, J. (2011). The seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XVI: From an Other to the other: 1968-1969.
  • Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PloS One, 10(6), e0127502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502
  • Lloyd, M., & Ordorika, I. (2021). International university rankings as cultural imperialism: Implications for the Global South. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 25–45). University of Toronto Press.
  • Lutz, J. F. (2012). Slow science. Nature Chemistry, 4, 588–589. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1415
  • Miranda, R., & Garcia-Carpintero, E. (2018). Overcitation and overrepresentation of review papers in the most cited papers. Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1015–1030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.08.006
  • Müller, R. (2014). Racing for what? Anticipation and acceleration in the work and career practices of academic life science postdocs. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-15.3.2186
  • Ordorika, I., & Lloyd, M. (2015). University rankings and accountability. Global Perspectives on Higher Education. Parchomovsky, G. (2000). Publish or perish. Michigan Law Review, 98(4), 926–952.
  • Pavlinek, M., & Podgorelec, V. (2017). Text classification method based on self-training and LDA topic models. Expert Systems with Applications, 80, 83-93.
  • Porter, A., & Rafols, I. (2009). Is science becoming more interdisciplinary? Measuring and mapping six research fields over time. Scientometrics, 81(3), 719-745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2197-2
  • Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (2012). University rankings and the contest for state power. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 97–113). University of Toronto Press.
  • Richardson, J., & Zikic, J. (2007). The darker side of an international academic career. Career Development International, 12(2), 164–186. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430710733654
  • Rödder, S. (2012). The Ambivalence of Visible Scientists. In: Rödder, S., Franzen, M., Weingart, P. (eds) The Sciences’ Media Connection –Public Communication and its Repercussions. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2085-5_8
  • Söderlind, J. (2020). A metric culture in academia: The influence of performance measurement on the academic culture of Swedish universities (Doctoral dissertation). Kungliga Tekniska högskolan.
  • Stack, M., & Mazawi, A. E. (2021). Beyond rankings and impact factors. In M. Stack (Ed.), Global university rankings and the politics of knowledge (pp. 223–242). University of Toronto Press.
  • Stengers, I. (2018). Another science is possible: A manifesto for slow science. Boston: Polity Press.
  • Tennant, J. P., Waldner, F., Jacques, D. C., Masuzzo, P., Collister, L. B., & Hartgerink, C. H. (2016). The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: An evidence-based review. F1000Research, 5, 632. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8460.3
  • Tüfekci, Z. (2015). Algorithmic harms beyond Facebook and Google: Emergent challenges of computational agency. Colo. Tech. LJ, 13, 203.
  • van der Weijden, I., Teelken, C., de Boer, M., & Drost, M. (2022). Talent management in academia: Performance systems and HR practices. Higher Education Policy, 35(2), 371–394. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-022-00277-x
  • Wilsdon, J., Allen, L., Belfiore, E., Campbell, P., Curry, S., Hill, S., Jones, R., & The Metric Tide Review Group. (2015). The metric tide: Report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. Higher Education Funding Council for England.
  • Yeşilbaş Özenç, Y. (2025). Yükseköğretimde Kalite. Journal of University Research, 8(1), 149-149. Zizek, S. (2011). How to read Lacan. Granta Books.
Toplam 40 adet kaynakça vardır.

Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil Türkçe
Konular Yükseköğretim Finansmanı, Yükseköğretim Sistemleri, Yükseköğretim Yönetimi, Yükseköğretim Çalışmaları (Diğer)
Bölüm Araştırma Makalesi
Yazarlar

Mehmet Fırat 0000-0001-8707-5918

Yayımlanma Tarihi 20 Eylül 2025
Gönderilme Tarihi 5 Nisan 2025
Kabul Tarihi 26 Haziran 2025
Yayımlandığı Sayı Yıl 2025 Cilt: 8 Sayı: 3

Kaynak Göster

APA Fırat, M. (2025). Akademide Metrik Kültür Erozyonu ve Yükselen Anomaliler. Journal of University Research, 8(3), 380-392. https://doi.org/10.32329/uad.1670503

Articles published in the Journal of University Research (Üniversite Araştırmaları Dergisi - ÜAD) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License 32353.