Mitigating collusion in Gold Humanism Honor Society nominations

TL;DR

This paper addresses bias in Gold Humanism Honor Society nominations caused by collusion, using simulations to detect and correct for bias, thereby improving fairness in the nomination process.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based method to identify and mitigate collusion bias in honor society nominations, offering a practical correction strategy.

Findings

Collusion can be numerically detected in nomination data.

A simple correction strategy effectively reduces bias.

Simulation results demonstrate improved fairness in nominations.

Abstract

An anecdotally common complaint regarding induction into the Gold Humanism Honor Society is the bias toward close friends during the initial nomination process. In this work, we numerically simulate the nomination process under different assumptions, demonstrate that collusion can be detected, and propose a simple strategy to correct for bias in the nomination process.