Coercive Citation as Ways to Increase One’s Citations Scientific Publishing and Ethics RESEARCH PROJECT

By Malibu Rohwani

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 3

Case Study ................................................................................................................... 5

Results: Improper but Tenacious .................................................................................. 6

(1) As editors of journals ........................................................................................... 6

Evidence from citations ............................................................................................. 7

Evidence from individual papers ............................................................................ 8

Evidence through references in journals ............................................................... 10

(2) A Guest Editor for a Special Issue ....................................................................... 13

(3) As Reviewer to Journals ................................................................................... 17

Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 19

References ................................................................................................................. 20

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Executive Summary Coercive citation is a malpractice in academic publishing wherein an editor of a scientific journal approached and coerced authors to add unwarranted citations to articles before the editor will agree to publish it. Previous study only investigated coercive citation from editors to enrich journals’ citations. However this practice has not been researched in an individual serving as editor or reviewer for a journal performing coercive citation with the ambition to boost one’s own citations. This research project undertakes a case study in electrical engineering. My finding is compelling and exposed that the subject of this study is involved in soliciting and coercing other authors into citing his articles in 2 major ways: (1) As editors of several journals, (2) A Guest Editor for a Special Issue. Substantial evidence and proofs from citations of the individual and journals are presented along with the discussion and arguments. The implication of this practice is discussed, mainly to cause agony in the integrity of academic publications.

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Introduction The significance of scientific publishing has become very clear,

not just about the communication of research discoveries but become an obligation of the academic society, academicians get credit for their work through citations and it was used as a measure of their triumph and success. Citation to a published scientific publication reference, typically a paper, allows one to judge the work, as source background information vital for future development, and acknowledges the contributions. Citation indexes originally were designed for information retrieval, but now are commonly used for research appraisal. Scientific publication is scrutinized by the quantity of citations it can collect. Citation is the foundation of the journal impact factor and h index.

Coercive citation is a malpractice in academic publishing

wherein an editor of a scientific journal approached and coerced authors to add unwarranted citations to articles before the editor will agree to publish it. Journal editors want to increase the citations of their journals, because it raises the journal’s impact factor and ranking, which is a prestige. Manipulation of impact factors and self-citation has long been known in academic publishing. While self-citation can be easily detected, coercive citation is difficult to discover. A paper in Science in 2012 by Wilhite and Fong indicated that about 20% of academics working in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines have experienced coercive citation [1]. Individual cases in journals have also been reported in other disciplines [2].

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Coercive citation was reported to be practiced by the editors of scientific journals without indicating that the article was actually lacking in provenance, nor suggesting particular articles, authors, or bodies of work, but merely directing authors to add citations from a particular author or journal [1].

This quote from an editor as a condition for publication highlights the quandary: “you cite This Journal only once in your 40 references. Consequently, we kindly ask you to add references of articles published in This Journal to your present article”. Such a message is clearly deciphered by the authors that the summoned citations must be added or the article will be rejected.[1,3]

Wilhite and Fong [1] studied coercive citation from editors to enhance journals’ citations, but this practice of coercive citation can also be practiced by as an individual serving as editor or reviewer for a journal with the aim to boost one’s own citations. Failure to recognize this trend is likely to cause an underestimation of the breadth of practice in this topic. Researching an individual does however provide a good understanding of the overall trend of publication and citation. This type of coercive citation has never been studied at a micro-level on individual. To explore the extent and nature of such coercive self-citation, I will conduct a research project in this exciting new area using a case study; the citation pattern is carefully analyzed to expose the practice of coercive citation. By analyzing progressions in research citations, directions in scientific inquiry can be established, and used to illustrate the development of scientific publishing and recognition.

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This research provides a comprehensive overview of the various tricks that are exercised for increasing citations. I will show that citation solicitation and coercion is evident and appeared to be practiced opportunistically in this case. My research through case study would make a compelling exposé due to its novelty. The implication of this practice is discussed, mainly to cause agony in the integrity of academic publications.

Case Study I conducted this research project by investigating a case study

using an individual who is well known anecdotally on the World Wide Web in practicing self-citation. N. Tansu is a Professor of Electrical Engineering who is well known to have a very high self-citation [4]. Some anecdotal studies indicated that the subject has over 50% of self-citations, supposedly to be deliberate in order to increase his citation numbers and h index [5-6]. While self-citation can be easily found out, coercive citation is a more sophisticated method which is not obvious. This research paper seeks to characterize the influence of coercive citation for a particular individual for one’s personal benefits. In order to analyze this inclination, publication and citation numbers and patterns were searched and subsequently recovered from a research database Scopus.

Citation databases make it possible to search cited references; that is, they search for references that are listed in the bibliographies of research publications. This enabled one to follow a

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particular cited reference, or cited author, forward in time to find other articles or journals that have cited that author or work.

Results: Improper but Tenacious Upon conducting a search using the Scopus database, I

retrieved citation patterns of the subject in different ways, which I will explain in the following sections. There are a number of factors that can be used in order to narrow down the potential citation anomaly.

The analysis is compelling and showed that the subject of this

study is hypothesized in soliciting and coercing other authors into citing his articles in 3 ways:

(1) As editors of journals

The subject Tansu is editors for several journals, particularly: 1. IEEE OSA JOURNAL OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY

(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=06517575)

2. Optical Materials Express (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/ome/journal/ome/about.cfm#board)

3. IEEE Photonics Journal (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/aboutJournal.jsp?punumber=4563994)

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The position held as an Associate Editor allows one to solicit and importune the authors into citing the editor’s papers. This is evident as most of the citations of the subject came from the above-mentioned 3 journals.

The conclusion is justified by three methods of investigation, which is singled out in Scopus database and I will outline in detail in the following sections.

Evidence from citations

Up to May 2013, the subject Tansu has 3131 citations. During Jan 2012-May 2013, Tansu obtained almost half of his total citations. These two years represent a sudden increase in citation volume. I will found out why. Premise: If coercive citation is to occur, the citations to the subject should come mainly from the mentioned-above 3 journals. In 2012, Tansu acquired 621 citations, which came from 204 articles, meaning each article are on average gave 3 citations. However, the top references came from: Optical Materials Express (17 references) IEEE Photonics Journal (16 references) In Jan-May 2013, Tansu obtained 685 citations, which is very high considering it is only 5 months and more citations than previous whole year.

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The citations came from 158 articles, meaning each article is on average gave 4 citations. However, the top references came from: IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology (37 references) Optical Materials Express (11 references) IEEE Photonics Journal (5 references) This anomaly is mirrored in further evidences in the following sections.

Evidence from individual papers

I also inspected the citations of the subject’s individual papers.

Premise: If coercive citation is to occur, the citations to the individual papers of the subject should come mainly from the mentioned-above 3 journals.

My finding is that most citations should come from the above-mentioned 3 journals. These are somewhat not extraordinary and herewith are some evidential proofs from some of the papers of the subject:

1. Zhao H., Liu G., Zhang J., Poplawsky J.D., Dierolf V., Tansu N. Approaches for high internal quantum efficiency green InGaN light-emitting diodes with large overlap quantum wells. 2011, Optics Express, (14)

This paper has 160 citations. Tansu himself has 17 self-citations, but the rest of citations come from

• 33 citations are from IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology

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• 20 citations are from Optical Materials Express • 8 citations are from IEEE Photonics Journal

The subject gained 61 citations by coercing other authors to cite this paper.

2. Li X.-H., Song R., Ee Y-.K., Kumnorkaew P., Gilchrist J.F., Tansu N. Light extraction efficiency and radiation patterns of III-nitride light-emitting diodes with colloidal microlens arrays with various aspect ratios. 2011, IEEE Photonics Journal, (3) 489-499

This paper has 89 citations, Tansu himself has 10 self-citations, • 20 citations are from IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology • 13 citations are from Optical Materials Express • 5 citations are from IEEE Photonics Journal

The subject benefited 38 citations by coercing authors to cite this paper.

3. Zhao H., Liu G., Arif R.A., Tansu N. Current injection efficiency induced efficiency-droop in InGaN quantum well light-emitting diodes. 2010, Solid-State Electronics, (10) 1119-1124

This paper has 89 citations, Tansu himself has 25 self citations, • 25 citations are from IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology • 12 citations are from IEEE Photonics Journal • 5 citations are from Optical Materials Express

The subject profited 42 citations from being editors of the 3 journals.

Another important finding is that almost all of the citations come from articles from Asian counties (Taiwan, China, Korea and Singapore). These 3 examples not unexpectedly showed that the

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subject has gained more than 50% of citations from being editors. This again justifies my premise; obviously the editor coerced the authors to add superfluous citations.

Evidence through references in journals

In this era of citation insanity, the choice of journal in which

the research will be published is very important. It is no longer just the number of published works that measures an author’s success, but also perhaps more importantly, published research is evaluated by the number of citations it receives. To validate this hypothesis, I will look into the number of references cited by the papers in the 3 journals. Premise: If coercive citation is manifested, the number of references to the subject (Tansu) should be huge compared to other authors. Anomaly in references should be detected.

I looked into the citations and references in the 3 journals: Citations in IEEE OSA JOURNAL OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY In Jan-May 2013, the journal has 115 articles Tansu is the top author with 6 papers 1410 References were cited by the 115 articles. Top on the cited list is Nakamura, S. (with 45 citations) an obvious one. (Shuji Nakamura is the inventor of the blue LED, a major breakthrough in lighting technology.) But second on the list is Tansu with 43 references.

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In 2012, the journal has 123 articles As Tansu was not an editor at the time, he didn't publish a single article in the journal. 1787 References were cited by the 123 articles. But Tansu cannot be found in any of the references. This is an anomaly, in 2013 references to Tansu jump from 0 to 43. This can be easily explained because Tansu became an editor in 2013 and guest edit a special issue (see below for a full discussion). By becoming an editor, the subject can benefit and crown the citation list of IEEE OSA JOURNAL OF DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY. Citations in Optical Materials Express In Jan-May 2013, the journal has published 54 articles. Tansu didn't publish any paper. 1534 References were cited by the 54 articles. Number one on the list is Tansu, with 25 references. In 2012, the journal has 202 articles Tansu didn't publish any paper. In the 5094 References that were cited by the 202 articles, Tansu shared 25 references. In 2011, the journal has 170 articles. Tansu didn't publish any paper. In the 4294 References that were cited by the 202 articles, Tansu shared 12 references. Every year the number of citations to Tansu increases showing the anomaly, especially in 2013, Tansu is the top cited references.

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Citations in IEEE Photonics Journal In Jan-May 2013, the journal has 93 articles Tansu published 6 papers In the 2261 References that were cited by the 93 articles, Tansu is on the top list with 23 references In 2012, the journal has 264 articles Tansu has 2 papers In the 5459 References that were cited by the 264 articles, Tansu shared 37 references. In 2011, the journal has 170 articles Tansu didn't publish any paper In the 2634 References that were cited by the 114 selected articles, Tansu shared 13 references. This trend is not observed in other journals in the same field: IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, Applied Physics Letters, Optics Express, Applied Optics. In other words the subject cannot be found as the top cited references. This means the work of the subject is not considered important in other journals, but raise interrogation on why became top cited references are only found in the 3 journals he edited.

Not unexpectedly, it can be concluded that solicited and coercive citations to Tansu occurred and it is not coincidental that after becoming an editor of a journal, the journal is used to boost up his citations.

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Remark: Number of references is not equal to number of citations. Each reference could be cited many times by different papers. The number of citations is usually higher than number of references.

(2) A Guest Editor for a Special Issue

Being part of an editorial board (associate editors) for journals only allowed one to have limited coercion to the papers an editor handle. But if one is selected as a guest editor for a Special Issue, one can coerced all papers to cite one’s papers. The subject was a guest editor for IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology in Volume 9, Issue 4 (April 2013). http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=6481607&punumber=9425 Premise: If coercive citation is manifested, the number of citations to the subject (Tansu) should occur on every paper in the special issue and should be huge compared to other authors. Anomaly in references should be detected.

The special issue that feature Recent advances in solid state lighting turns out to be Advancing one’s citations. Here each of the papers in the Special issue is analysed and showed that all of the papers cited Tansu unnecessarily:

a) Effects of H2 in GaN barrier spacer layer of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum-well light-emitting diodes. Lai, W.-C., Yang, Y.-Y. 2013

10 citations to Tansu

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b) Investigating the effect of piezoelectric polarization on GaN-based LEDs with different quantum barrier thickness. Wang, C.K., Chiang, T.H., Chen, K.Y., Chiou, Y.Z., Lin, T.K., Chang, S.P., Chang, S.J.

9 citations to Tansu c) Lateral current spreading effect on the efficiency droop in GaN

based light-emitting diodes. Huang, S., Fan, B., Chen, Z., Zheng, Z., Luo, H., Wu, Z., Wang, G., Jiang, H.

8 citations to Tansu d) Effect of polarization-matched n-type AlGaInN electron-

blocking layer on the optoelectronic properties of blue InGaN light-emitting diodes. Li, Y., Gao, Y., He, M., Zhou, J., Lei, Y., Zhang, L., Zhu, K., Chen, Y.

11 citations to Tansu e) Effects of initial GaN growth mode on patterned sapphire on

the opto-electrical characteristics of GaN-based light-emitting diodes. Chang, H.-M., Lai, W.-C., Chang, S.-J.

6 citations to Tansu f) On the Effect of Step-Doped Quantum Barriers in InGaN/GaN

Light Emitting Diodes. Zi-Hui Zhang ; Tan, S.T. ; Zhengang Ju ; Wei Liu ; Yun Ji ; Kyaw, Z. ; Dikme, Y. ; Xiao Wei Sun ; Demir, H.V.

11 citations to Tansu g) Effects of H2 in GaN Barrier Spacer Layer of InGaN/GaN

Multiple Quantum-Well Light-Emitting Diodes. Wei-Chih Lai ; Ya-Yu Yang

10 citations to Tansu h) Improved Carrier Distributions by Varying Barrier Thickness for

InGaN/GaN LEDs. Yu, S.F. ; Ray-Ming Lin ; Chang, S.J. ; Chen, J.R. ; Chu, J.Y. ; Kuo, C.T. ; Jiao, Z.Y.

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10 citations to Tansu i) Effect of Si Doping Level in n-Cladding Layer on the

Performance of InGaN-Based Light-Emitting Diodes. Zhiyuan Zheng ; Zimin Chen ; Yingda Chen ; Hualong Wu ; Bingfeng Fan ; Zhisheng Wu ; Gang Wang ; Hao Jiang

7 citations to Tansu j) Performance Improvement of Nitride-Based Light-Emitting

Diode With a Thin Mg-Delta-Doped Hole Injection Layer. Yulun Xian ; Shanjin Huang ; Zhiyuan Zheng ; Bingfeng Fan ; Zimin Chen ; Zhisheng Wu ; Gang Wang ; Baijun Zhang ; Hao Jiang

9 citations to Tansu k) Observation of Electroluminescence From Quantum Wells Far

From p-GaN Layer in Nitride-Based Light-Emitting Diodes. Zhiyuan Zheng ; Zimin Chen ; Yingda Chen ; Hualong Wu ; Shanjin Huang ; Bingfeng Fan ; Zhisheng Wu ; Gang Wang ; Hao Jiang

8 citations to Tansu l) Lateral Current Spreading Effect on the Efficiency Droop in GaN

Based Light-Emitting Diodes. Shanjin Huang ; Bingfeng Fan ; Zimin Chen ; Zhiyuan Zheng ; Hongtai Luo ; Zhisheng Wu ; Gang Wang ; Hao Jiang

8 citations to Tansu m) First-Principle Electronic Properties of Dilute-As GaNAs Alloy

for Visible Light Emitters. Chee-Keong Tan ; Jing Zhang ; Xiao-Hang Li ; Guangyu Liu ; Tayo, B.O. ; Tansu, N.

8 citations to Tansu n) Efficiency and Droop Improvement in Hybrid Warm White LEDs

Using InGaN and AlGaInP High-Voltage LEDs. Kuo-Ju Chen ; Hsuan-Ting Kuo ; Yen-Chih Chiang ; Hsin-Chu Chen ; Chao-

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Hsun Wang ; Min-Hsiung Shih ; Chien-Chung Lin ; Ching-Jen Pan ; Hao-Chung Kuo

3 citations to Tansu o) Enhanced Light Output Power and Growth Mechanism of GaN-

Based Light-Emitting Diodes Grown on Cone-Shaped Patterned Template. Da-Wei Lin ; Jhih-Kai Huang ; Chia-Yu Lee ; Ruey-Wen Chang ; Yu-Pin Lan ; Chien-Chung Lin ; Kang-Yuan Lee ; Chung-Hsiang Lin ; Po-Tsung Lee ; Gou-Chung Chi ; Hao-Chung Kuo

6 citations to Tansu p) Effects of Initial GaN Growth Mode on Patterned Sapphire on

the Opto-Electrical Characteristics of GaN-Based Light-Emitting Diodes. Hung-Ming Chang ; Wei-Chih Lai ; Shoou-Jinn Chang

6 citations to Tansu q) Analysis of interdiffused InGaN quantum wells for visible light-

emitting diodes. Zhao, H., Jiao, X., Tansu, N. 10 citations to Tansu

r) Analysis of internal quantum efficiency and current injection efficiency in III-nitride light-emitting diodes. Zhao, H., Liu, G., Zhang, J., Arif, R.A., Tansu, N.

16 citations to Tansu s) Semipolar InGaN/GaN Light-Emitting Diodes for High-

Efficiency Solid-State Lighting; Feezell, D.F. ; Speck, J.S. ; DenBaars, S.P. ; Nakamura, S.

1 citation to Tansu

All papers have 6-10 citations to Tansu, and noticed all papers are from China, Taiwan and Singapore where an editor can easily coerced the authors. The only paper that escaped is by Feezell and

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Shuji Nakamura, a well-known authority in InGaN LED. This is in accordance with the research by Wilhite and Fong that many journal editors appear to strategically target certain authors, such as assistant and associate professors (from Asian countries), rather than full professors (Nakamura), relying on the fact that lower ranking authors may be more willing to add the unnecessary citations. They also found that while the majority of authors disapprove of the practice, most acquiesce and add citations when coerced.

Again, not unexpectedly, citation manipulation is observed. The subject gained more than 160 citations from a single journal edition, thanks to IEEE OSA Journal of Display Technology. The excessive citations to Tansu in the papers are not necessary and essentially superfluous. Take an example the paper by Zhang et al. On the Effect of Step-Doped Quantum Barriers in InGaN/GaN Light Emitting Diodes: “For that, staggered InGaN quantum wells have been proposed and investigated [16]–[20].” “ …, therefore increasing the radiative recombination rates [23]–[26]” References [16] -[20] and [23]–[26] are all papers by Tansu. This finding is consistent with a previous study in SPIE Proceedings [6].

(3) As Reviewer to Journals

In addition to being editors, according to his CV http://www.ece.lehigh.edu/~tansu/pdf/Tansu_CV.pdf, the subject regularly

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reviewed papers for Applied Physics Letters and Journal of Applied Physics. It is conjectured that the subject also coerced authors of the paper he reviewed to cite his papers. This is more difficult to hunt down.

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Conclusions Citation manipulation is as ancient as the process of

provenance itself, and academicians shouldn’t be stunned that incongruous citation behavior is occurring. Considering all this valuable information, my study suggests that citation solicitation and coercion by an individual is a phenomenon, and is a conundrum. This finding is backed up by solid data from citations of the subject and in journals.

Coercive citation is primarily targeting vulnerable younger researchers from Asian countries as publishing in a journal is a critical consideration for an author. This behavior is in order to have the greatest effect on the citation of an individual that is opportunistic. This case study showed that an editor gained 160 citations from just a single special issue in a journal.

This kind of comportment is doing harm to science. I hope this research brings this unscrupulous practice to radiance. If left unimpeded, it could distort our understanding of scientific quality and research impact and, over many occasions, disquiet pronouncements about tenure, promotion, awards and funding. Prominently, it is adding to the difficulties faced by susceptible junior member of faculty who are trying to construct a record for tenure.

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References [1] Wilhite, A. W.; Fong, E. A. (2012). "Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing". Science 335 (6068): 542–3. doi:10.1126/science.1212540. [2] Smith, R. (1997). "Journal accused of manipulating impact factor". BMJ 314 (7079): 461. doi:10.1136/bmj.314.7079.461d. [3] Davis, P. (2012) “When Journal Editors Coerce Authors to Self-Cite”. The Scholarly Kitchen http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/02/02/when-journal-editors-coerce-authors-to-self-cite/ [4] Dem, G. Nelson Tansu: Self Citation Record http://www.academia.edu/794892/Nelson_Tansu_Self_Citation_Record [5] Dem, G. How to increase your papers citations and h index in 5 simple steps. http://www.academia.edu/934257/How_to_increase_your_papers_citations_and_h_index_in_5_simple_steps [6] Dem, G. Update in SPIE Proceedings: More Consistent Self Citation. http://www.academia.edu/633781/Update_in_SPIE_Proceedings_More_Consistent_Self_Citation