The Matthew Effect is the power law of small world networks

0 comments

Posted on 10th February 2010 by Judy Breck in Findability

, , , , ,

John Wilbanks writes in SEEDMAGAZINE this week about the Matthew Effect: “When it comes to scientific publishing and fame, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The effect is named from this explanation by Jesus of a parable: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” —Matthew 25:29

Wilbanks describes in the article, that the Matthew effect is observable in scientific publication: “famous scientists reap more credit than unknowns.” As it does in the parable, the effect on scientists ends up causing “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Something very interesting is going on here. The Matthew effect is a characteristic of small world networks. The effect has several names: Pareto principle, power law, long tail, and preferential attachment. Google essentially operates on this principle because the links most favored and attached go to the top of the search engine results.

What seems to be happening for scientific publication is NOT that this principle is operating, but quite the opposite. Peer review and other non-network mechanisms are actually gumming up the networks: the most creative and productive scientists are not getting the recognition.

This false Matthew-like effect is critical to recognize for online findability. That findability MUST make the best resources the richest or the vetting visions for the open knowledge commons are badly downgraded.

And lo! After describing the false elevations occurring from scientific citation, Wilbanks writes:

Multidimensionality is one of the only counters to the Matthew Effect we have available. In forums where this kind of meritocracy prevails over seniority, like Linux or Wikipedia, the Matthew Effect is much less pronounced. And we have the capacity to measure each of these individual factors of a scientist’s work, using the basic discourse of the Web: the blog, the wiki, the comment, the trackback. We can find out who is talented in a lab, not just who was smart enough to hire that talent. As we develop the ability to measure multiple dimensions of scientific knowledge creation, dissemination, and re-use, we open up a new way to recognize excellence. What we can measure, we can value.

Surely, this fairness emerging from measurability in the open internet is the actual Matthew effect: the power law. The deserving scientists rise to the head of the curve and others trail out into the curve’s long tail. What scientists have been griping about as the Matthew effect is constricted by peer review and ambitions. In the open internet, that sort of thing is much harder to do and the real Matthew effect determines who gets rich — selecting there, as Google does, the better quality stuff.

Hat tip to John Wilbanks: Great article in SEED, but I could not resist tweaking the irony of the Matthew effect language.

Obama’s Race to the Top locks in a diploma bell curve

1 comment

Posted on 7th February 2010 by Judy Breck in Equality | Schools we now have

, , , , , ,


The Race to the Top is granting $4 billion American taxpayer dollars to the states for “reforming” public schools. The program’s webpage at Ed.gov gives this bottom line explanation:

Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow as they too are hard at work on reforms that can transform our schools for decades to come.

For 21st century education reforming education around public schools locks in a bell curve for schooling that makes diplomas of unequal value. One of the four specific areas in Race for the Top is: Turning around our lowest-achieving schools. The illustration above shows why doing so traps the students in these schools at the lower end of a bell curve of diploma value. The school on the low end of the bell curve is Columbus High School in the Bronx, New York. Columbus is now scheduled to be closed because it is failing. Realistically, turning it around would move the value of its diploma up the downside of the bell curve. The Race to the Top sort of thinking will see such movement as a victory, yet the Columbus students will remain in a far inferior school by comparison to schools like Jefferson, ranked number one US high school for 2010. The Jefferson diploma will remain far more valuable to a student who earns it than the Columbus diploma. That system is unfair.

There is a better way: replace the bell curve with the long tail

The internet is a power law network where the long tail can replace the bell curve. We should not allow public education to persist in bell curve school-ranking methods that perpetuate an underclass. Handschooling a power law tool; more on that point here soon.

As explained in a recent handschooling.com post, online testing open to all would give a Columbus student a way to complete with Jefferson students. What is now coming out of ed.gov is a race a bit of the way up the downside of the public school bell curve — at a price tag of $4 billion. Has Congress approved this expenditure?