Selecting Scientific Papers for Publication via Citation Auctions

The scientific community has been suffering from peer review for decades. This process (also called refereeing) subjects an author's scientific work or ideas to the scrutiny of one or more experts in the field. Publishers use it to select and screen manuscript submissions, and funding agencies use it to award research funds. The goal is to get authors to meet their discipline's standards and thus achieve scientific objectivity. Publications and awards that haven't undergone peer review are often regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields. However, peer review, although universally used, has many drawbacks. We propose replacing peer review with an auction-based approach: the better the submitted paper, the more scientific currency the author likely bid to have it published. If the bid correctly reflects the paper's quality, the author is rewarded in this new scientific currency; otherwise, the author loses this currency. We argue that citations are an appropriate currency for all scientists. We believe that citation auctions encourage scientists to better control their submissions' quality. It also inspire them to prepare more exciting talks for accepted papers and to invite discussion of their results at congresses and conferences and among their colleagues. In the long run, citation auctions could have the power to greatly improve scientific research

Citation auctions as a method to improve selection of scientific papers

This paper describes the basis of citation auctions as a new approach to selecting scientific papers for publication. Our main idea is to use an auction for selecting papers for publication through - differently from the state of the art - bids that consist of the number of citations that a scientist expects to receive if the paper is published. Hence, a citation auction is the selection process itself, and no reviewers are involved. The benefits of the proposed approach are two-fold. First, the cost of refereeing will be either totally eliminated or significantly reduced, because the process of citation auction does not need prior understanding of the paper's content to judge the quality of its contribution. Additionally, the method will not prejudge the content of the paper, so it will increase the openness of publications to new ideas. Second, scientists will be much more committed to the quality of their papers, paying close attention to distributing and explaining their papers in detail to maximize the number of citations that the paper receives. Sample analyses of the number of citations collected in papers published in years 1999-2004 for one journal, and in years 2003-2005 for a series of conferences (in a totally different discipline), via Google scholar, are provided. Finally, a simple simulation of an auction is given to outline the behaviour of the citation auction approach

Antecedentes de la lealtad en los entornos on line y off line: un análisis empírico aplicado al sector de la aviación civil

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar la lealtad de los usuarios de líneas aéreas tanto en el entorno online como en el entorno offline. La revisión bibliográfica ha identificado tres antecedentes: la satisfacción, la confianza y el valor percibido. Se ha llevado a cabo un estudio empírico realizándose un total de 1710 entrevistas personales en el aeropuerto del Prat (Barcelona) a usuarios de dos compañías aéreas tradicionales, Iberia y British Airways, y a una compañía low cost, Easyjet. Se trata de las tres compañías que operan con vuelos directos Barcelona-Londres. En el análisis de los datos se han utilizado modelos de ecuaciones estructurales y en particular la técnica utilizada fue el análisis factorial confirmatorio. Los resultados revelan que tanto la satisfacción, como la confianza y el valor percibido explican las relaciones de lealtad entre los pasajeros y las compañías aéreas.

Identitat, racisme i violència. Les relacions interètniques en un institut català

Aquesta tesi està basada en l'etnografia d'un institut d'educació secundària situat en una ciutat mitjana de Catalunya, amb un nivell socioeconòmic mig-baix i una important presència d'immigrants (de diferents zones de l'estat espanyol i d'Àfrica, sobretot marroquins i gambians). El treball inclou una recerca bibliogràfica i de clarificació teòrica amb la que es pretén situar els fenòmens que s'estudien (identitat, racisme i violència) en el moment històric i context social actual, per tal de poder explicar l'ascens o la importància d'aquests fenòmens, així com les relacions que es poden establir entre ells. La primera part de la tesi respon a la voluntat de contextualitzar teòricament la recerca etnogràfica i de situar les observacions d'aula en un marc social més ampli. A la segona part es presenten les aportacions que han realitzat els sociòlegs i els antropòlegs de l'educació a l'anàlisi del tractament de la diversitat ètnica, del racisme i de la violència en l'àmbit escolar. A la tercera part es desenvolupa el treball de recerca etnogràfica centrat en l'anàlisi de les relacions interètniques de l'alumnat.