Universities have used an array of incentives to increase academic publications, which are highly rewarded in the South African higher education funding formula. While all universities use indirect incentives, such as linking promotion and probation to publication, the mechanisms used in some institutions have taken a very direct form, whereby authors are paid to publish. This process has paralleled a large rise in publication outputs alongside increased concerns about quality. Significantly, there are ethical questions to be asked when knowledge dissemination is so explicitly linked to financial reward through the payment of commission to academics. Based on an analysis of institutional policies and data from an online survey and interviews with academics from seven South African universities, we argue that when money is the main means used to encourage academics to contribute to knowledge, numerous unintended consequences may emerge. These include a focus on quantity rather than the quality of research, a rise in predatory publishing, and resentment among academics. We argue that incentives, in particular direct payment for publications, undermine the academic project by positioning publications in terms of exchange-value rather than their use-value as a contribution to knowledge building.

中文翻译：

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使用直接激励推动研究传播的复杂任务的意外后果

大学采用了一系列激励措施来增加学术出版物，南非高等教育拨款公式对此给予了极大的奖励。尽管所有大学都使用间接激励措施，例如将晋升和缓刑与出版联系起来，但某些机构使用的机制却采用了非常直接的形式，作者可以通过付费获得出版权。在此过程中，出版物的产出大大增加，同时人们对质量的关注也增加了。值得注意的是，当知识传播通过向学者支付佣金而明确地与经济奖励挂钩时，就会有道德问题。根据一项在线调查对机构政策和数据的分析以及对南非七所大学的学者的采访，我们认为，当金钱是鼓励学者为知识做出贡献的主要手段时，可能会出现许多意想不到的后果。这些包括关注数量而不是研究质量，掠夺性出版的兴起以及学者之间的不满。我们认为，激励措施，特别是对出版物的直接付款，通过将出版物定位为交换价值而不是使用价值来促进知识建设，从而破坏了学术项目。