{"doi":"10.1007/s11739-023-03447-w","title":"Quantitative research assessment: using metrics against gamed metrics","abstract":"Quantitative bibliometric indicators are widely used and widely misused for research assessments. Some metrics have acquired major importance in shaping and rewarding the careers of millions of scientists. Given their perceived prestige, they may be widely gamed in the current \"publish or perish\" or \"get cited or perish\" environment. This review examines several gaming practices, including authorship-based, citation-based, editorial-based, and journal-based gaming as well as gaming with outright fabrication. Different patterns are discussed, including massive authorship of papers without meriting credit (gift authorship), team work with over-attribution of authorship to too many people (salami slicing of credit), massive self-citations, citation farms, H-index gaming, journalistic (editorial) nepotism, journal impact factor gaming, paper mills and spurious content papers, and spurious massive publications for studies with demanding designs. For all of those gaming practices, quantitative metrics and analyses may be able to help in their detection and in placing them into perspective. A portfolio of quantitative metrics may also include indicators of best research practices (e.g., data sharing, code sharing, protocol registration, and replications) and poor research practices (e.g., signs of image manipulation). Rigorous, reproducible, transparent quantitative metrics that also inform about gaming may strengthen the legacy and practices of quantitative appraisals of scientific work.","journal":"Internal and Emergency Medicine","year":2023,"id":1067,"datarank":1.246292315351949,"base_score":3.9318256327243257,"endowment":3.9318256327243257,"self_citation_contribution":0.5897738449086489,"citation_network_contribution":0.6565184704432999,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5897738449086489,"citer_contribution":0.6565184704432999,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":50,"citer_count":38,"citers_with_citation_signal":20,"citers_with_endowment":20,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0508,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-11-03","fair_score":12.5,"fair_percentile":0.15391380826737028,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":14752,"name":"Zacharias Maniadis","orcid":"0000-0002-3225-0835","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. 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Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":71,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":20.0,"fair_a":30.0,"fair_i":0.0,"fair_r":0.0,"fair_zscore":-2.9589,"fair_rationale":{"fair_score":12.5,"has_llm":true,"dimensions":{"F":{"name":"Findable","score":20.0,"criteria":[{"key":"f_has_doi","label":"Has a persistent DOI","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"DOI present","rationale":null},{"key":"f_repository_presence","label":"Indexed in repositories / literature DBs","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"datacite=0, pmcid=False, pmid=False","rationale":null},{"key":"f_persistent_ids","label":"Resolvable scholarly identifiers (OpenAlex)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no OpenAlex id","rationale":null},{"key":"f_metadata_richness","label":"Rich, machine-readable metadata","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper provides no description of any machine-readable metadata for the data or code discussed."}]},"A":{"name":"Accessible","score":30.0,"criteria":[{"key":"a_open_access","label":"Open Access / files deposited","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":1.0,"signal":"Open Access","rationale":null},{"key":"a_retrievable","label":"Free full text retrievable","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"0 OA location(s)","rationale":null},{"key":"a_access_protocol","label":"Clear data/code access protocol","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The text does not specify any protocol for accessing data or code; no repository, link, or access conditions are mentioned."}]},"I":{"name":"Interoperable","score":0.0,"criteria":[{"key":"i_linked_data","label":"Linked datasets / DataCite relations","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"linked_datasets=0, datacite=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standard_ids","label":"References data via standard accessions","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"accessions=0, trials=0","rationale":null},{"key":"i_standards","label":"Standard formats, vocabularies & identifiers","kind":"llm","weight":1.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper does not refer to any standard formats, vocabularies, or persistent identifiers used for the underlying data or code."}]},"R":{"name":"Reusable","score":0.0,"criteria":[{"key":"r_license","label":"Clear, open reuse license","kind":"deterministic","weight":1.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no license","rationale":null},{"key":"r_downloads","label":"Demonstrated reuse (downloads)","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"downloads=0","rationale":null},{"key":"r_version","label":"Versioned / maintained","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"no version chain","rationale":null},{"key":"r_dataset","label":"Classified as a data resource","kind":"deterministic","weight":0.5,"fraction":0.0,"signal":"not a dataset","rationale":null},{"key":"r_reusability","label":"Data-availability statement, license & reproducibility","kind":"llm","weight":2.0,"fraction":0.0,"signal":null,"rationale":"The paper lacks a data-availability statement, license information, and any explicit steps to enable reproduction or reuse of materials."}]}},"suggestions":["Include a data-availability statement that specifies where the underlying data and code can be accessed.","Deposit any datasets or analysis code in a recognized repository (e.g., Zenodo, Figshare) with a permanent DOI.","Provide metadata in a machine-readable format (e.g., JSON-LD, XML) and use standard vocabularies like DataCite for discoverability.","Add a clear reuse license (e.g., CC BY 4.0) to the deposited materials and state this in the paper.","If the paper is purely a review with no new data, explicitly state that no new data were generated and refer to a systematic review protocol or list of sources used."],"model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","agent_version":"fair_agent_v1","fulltext_source":"abstract_only"},"fair_model":"deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash","fair_agent_version":"fair_agent_v1","fair_fulltext_source":"abstract_only","fair_has_llm":true,"fair_computed_at":"2026-06-14T20:33:21.865338Z","clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}