A simulation of disagreement for control of rational cheating in peer review

Understanding the peer review process could help research and shed light on the mech-anisms that underlie crowdsourcing. In this paper, we present an agent-based model of peer review built on three entities - the paper, the scientist and the conference. The system is implemented on a BDI platform (Jason) that allows to dene a rich model of scoring, evaluating and selecting papers for conferences. Then, we propose a programme committee update mechanism based on disagreement control that is able to remove reviewers applying a strategy aimed to prevent papers better than their own to be ac-cepted (rational cheating"). We analyze a homogeneous scenario, where all conferences aim to the same level of quality, and a heterogeneous scenario, in which conferences request dierent qualities, showing how this aects the update mechanism proposed. We also present a rst step towards an empirical validation of our model that compares the amount of disagreements found in real conferences with that obtained in our simulations

Do editors have a silver bullet? an agent-based model of peer review

This paper presents an agent-based model of peer review that looks at the effect of different editorial policies of referee selection. We tested four author/referee matching scenarios as follows: random selection of referees, selection of referees with a similar status to submission authors, selection of higher-skilled and lower skilled referees. We tested these scenarios against three types of referee behaviour, ie., fair, unreliable and strategic and measured their implications for the quality and efficiency of the process. Results show that in case of randomness of referee judgment, any editorial policy is detrimental for peer review. If referees behave strategically, certain matching policies, such as selecting referees of good quality, might counteract possible bias

When competition is pushed too hard. An agent-based model of strategic behaviour of referees in peer review

This paper examines the impact of strategic behaviour of referees on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modelled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetry and subject to evaluation bias. We built two simulation scenarios to investigate largescale implications of referee behaviour and judgment bias. The first one was inspired by "the luck of the reviewer draw" idea. In this case, we assumed that referees randomly fell into Type I and Type II errors, i.e., recommending submissions of low quality to be published or recommending against the publishing of submissions which should have been published. In the second scenario, we assumed that certain referees tried intentionally to outperform potential competitors by underrating the value of their submissions. We found that when publication selection increased, the presence of a minority of cheaters may dramatically undermine the quality and efficiency of peer review even compared with a scenario purely dominated by "the luck of the reviewer draw". We also found that peer review outcomes are significantly influenced by differences in the way scientists identify potential competitors in the system

Is three better than one? simulating the effect of reviewer selection and behavior on the quality and efficiency of peer review

This paper looks at the effect of multiple reviewers and their behavior on the quality and efficiency of peer review. By extending a previous model, we tested various reviewer behavior, fair, random and strategic, and examined the impact of selecting multiple reviewers for the same author submission. We found that, when reviewer reliability is random or reviewers behave strategically, involving more than one reviewer per submission reduces evaluation bias. However, if scientists review scrupulously, multiple reviewers require an abnormal resource drain at the system level from research activities towards reviewing. This implies that reviewer selection mechanisms that protect the quality of the process against reviewer misbehavior might be economically unsustainable

Attitudes of referees in a multidisciplinary journal: An empirical analysis

This paper looks at 10 years of reviews in a multidisciplinary journal, The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS), which is the flagship journal of social simulation. We measured referee behavior and referees' agreement. We found that the disciplinary background and the academic status of the referee have an influence on the report time, the type of recommendation and the acceptance of the reviewing task. Referees from the humanities tend to be more generous in their recommendations than other referees, especially economists and environmental scientists. Second, we found that senior researchers are harsher in their judgments than junior researchers, and the latter accept requests to review more often and are faster in reporting. Finally, we found that articles that had been refereed and recommended for publication by a multidisciplinary set of referees were subsequently more likely to receive citations than those that had been reviewed by referees from the same discipline. Our results show that common standards of evaluation can be established even in multidisciplinary communities

Reputation or peer review? The role of outliers

Altres ajuts: We are grateful to Aron Szekely for his support in our discussions, and to Nicolas Payette for helping us with Netlogo code. This work was partially supported by the COST Action TD1306 "New frontiers of peer review" (www.peere.org), by the FuturICT 2.0 (www.futurict2.eu) project funded by the FLAG-ERA JCT 2017, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Project TIN2015-66972-C5-5-R and by the University of Valencia under grant UV-INV_EPDI17-548224. We acknowledge two anonymous reviewers for their generous and careful reading of our first draft and for sharing ideas on current and future work.We present an agent-based model of paper publication and consumption that allows to study the effect of two different evaluation mechanisms, peer review and reputation, on the quality of the manuscripts accessed by a scientific community. The model was empirically calibrated on two data sets, mono- and multi-disciplinary. Our results point out that disciplinary settings differ in the rapidity with which they deal with extreme events-papers that have an extremely high quality, that we call outliers. In the mono-disciplinary case, reputation is better than traditional peer review to optimize the quality of papers read by researchers. In the multi-disciplinary case, if the quality landscape is relatively flat, a reputation system also performs better. In the presence of outliers, peer review is more effective. Our simulation suggests that a reputation system could perform better than peer review as a scientific information filter for quality except when research is multi-disciplinary and in a field where outliers exist

Tax Compliance as a Wicked System

This Article proposes a new typology and framework for tax compliance systems. Traditionally-competing approaches such as deterrence theory, behaviorist theory, and game theoretic models taken together suggest that tax compliance is perhaps a new type of system—a “wicked system”—that is only partially comprehensible by understanding the traditional theories alone. If correct, previously competing theories become simply different limiting cases of the same underlying “wicked system.” The Article concludes with a discussion of the framework’s limitations and presents initial solutions and challenges for future work

Assessment of tax perception in Turkey : a comparative perspective of international students

06.03.2018 tarihli ve 30352 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanan “Yükseköğretim Kanunu İle Bazı Kanun Ve Kanun Hükmünde Kararnamelerde Değişiklik Yapılması Hakkında Kanun” ile 18.06.2018 tarihli “Lisansüstü Tezlerin Elektronik Ortamda Toplanması, Düzenlenmesi ve Erişime Açılmasına İlişkin Yönerge” gereğince tam metin erişime açılmıştır.Bu çalışmanın amacı, modern toplumlarda en çok tartışılan olgulardan biri olan vergi ile ilgili yabancı öğrencilerin algılarını incelemektir. Vergi algılarını değerlendiren bu çalışma, Türkiye'deki vergi sistemi ile deneklerin kendi ülkelerinde var olan vergi sistemi arasında bir karşılaştırmaya da imkan verdi. Bu çalışmada betimsel araştırma tasarımı kullanıldı. 500 denek öğrenci araştırmanın hedef kitlesi olarak Marmara Bölgesinden rastgele seçildi. Kapalı uçlu sorular yöneltilerek toplanan birincil veriler, tablolar ve yüzdeler aracılığıyla tanımlayıcı istatistiklerle analiz edildi. Algı düzeyindeki varsayımsal farklılıkları doğrulamak veya reddetmek için çarpıklık ve kartosis değerler parametrik olmayan yöntemlerin kullanılmasına zemin hazırlamıştır. Böylelikle, bu çalışmadan elde edilen sonuçlar, hem Türkiye'de hem de yabancı öğrencilerin ülkelerindeki vergi yasaları içeriğindeki karmaşıklığın mevcudiyetini reddeden bulgular ortaya koymuştur. Her ne kadar incelenen her iki ülkede vergi adaleti oldukça yüksek olsa da, halen adaletsizliğin var olduğu düşüncesi kendine yer buldu. Bununla birlikte, bu çalışma bireylerin vergi sistemine ve devlet harcamalarına karşı olumlu algı ve tutum geliştirdiklerinde daima vergi uyumu davranışını destekleyen bir faktörün mevcut olduğunu göstermektedir.The objective of this study was to examine the perceptions of foreigner students about tax which appears to be one of the most discussed phenomenon in our modern societies. By assessing their tax perceptions, this study elaborated a comparison between tax system in Turkey and the existing tax system in their country of origin. The study used descriptive research design. A selection of 500 individual respondent students was randomly processed as the population target of this research in the Marmara Region. By using primary data collected through a format of close-ended questions, a number of tables and percentages have been used for analysis under descriptive statistics. The values of skewness and kurtosis paved the way for utilizing non-parametric methods to confirm or reject hypothetical differences in the level of perceptions. Thus, the revealing findings of this research study exhibited indications that rejected availability of complexity in the content of the tax law in both Turkey and foreigner students' country of origin. Although tax fairness was admittedly higher in both the two side countries under study, still alarming associations denounced unfairness. Notwithstanding, this study shows that when individuals hold positive perceptive attitudes in the face of the tax system and towards the spendings operated by government, there is always a triggering factor evolving from within to encourage tax compliance behaviour

There is No Spoon: Reconsidering the Tax Compliance Puzzle

For over 40 years theorists have sought the effects of tax audits on voluntary compliance rates by studying individual taxpayer motivations. Yet no single theory has produced a taxpayer incentive model that both comports with experience and explains the effects of audits on compliance. This quandary is often termed the “tax compliance puzzle.” Consequently, some theorists have called for more capacious models that make room for the panoply of individual compliance motivations. This Article proposes that a more complex model is unnecessary. To the contrary, complex compliance and enforcement data can result from extremely simple behavioral rules of individual taxpayers and government examiners interacting over time. This Article describes an agent-based computational model that uses a single, simple rule of action for each taxpayer and examiner. The model produces three interesting effects supporting the conclusion that there may be no tax compliance puzzle to solve. First, the results comport with known U.S. compliance and audit rates. Second, the results suggest that while audit probability influences individual compliance decisions, it has negligible effects on system-level compliance patterns. Third, the results support the theory that the perceived strength of the tax authority correlates directly—but nonlinearly—with voluntary compliance rates. The model is not complete enough to determine conclusively that this last effect is due to perceived strength of the tax authority alone and might be due instead to factors such as social norms and other behaviorist theories