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Predatory Journals and Suspicious Papers

Issue #92

Data, Numbers

by Michael Seadle (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)


Retraction watch highlighted two articles from the journal Nature about related academic integrity problems. The article by Jackson Ryan about “Exposing Predatory Journals: Anonymous Sleuthing Account Goes Public” explains that his reason for the anonymous posts on X (formerly Twitter) was to avoid the problems that finally forced Jeffrey Beall to take down his blog about predatory publishing. His pseudonym is “Publishing with Integrity”¹

 

“Publishing with Integrity was initially set up to report on, and try to address, the issues posed by predatory journals and publishers. It quickly became apparent that this was the tip of a very big iceberg, and there are many other challenges that need to be addressed, including paper mills, which churn out fake papers to order; buying and selling authorships; and, in the past few years, the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, especially large language models that can generate hundreds of articles in a matter of minutes.”¹


The second article by Richard Van Noorden had the title “Journals with High Rates of Suspicious Papers Flagged by Science-Integrity Start-Up.”

It discusses a website called “Argos” that 

 

“... gives papers a risk score on the basis of their authors’ publication records, and on whether the paper heavily cites already-retracted research. A paper categorized as ‘high risk’ might have multiple authors whose other studies have been retracted for reasons related to misconduct, for example. Having a high score doesn’t prove that a paper is low quality, but suggests that it is worth investigating.”²

 

The article mentioned two other websites that “... look for red flags in papers.”² Argos offers a table of “[t]he publishers with the greatest number — and proportion — of 'high-risk' articles in their portfolio from 2014 to 2024…”² It is perhaps unsurprising that Hindawi, which is now closed, has by far the highest negative score. Publishers take the ratings seriously: 

 

“... Chris Graf, head of research integrity at Springer Nature, says that the journal investigates every issue raised with it. He adds that the proportion of its content that has been highlighted is comparatively low given its size.”²

 

The problem is not that the publishers are indifferent, but that they simply do not have the capacity to deal with the scale of potential integrity violations. Universities can help only if they ease the pressure on early career academics to publish beyond their capacity. They should have the freedom to think.


 

1: Ryan, Jackson. “Exposing Predatory Journals: Anonymous Sleuthing Account Goes Public.” Nature, October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03321-5 .

 

2: Van Noorden, Richard. “Journals with High Rates of Suspicious Papers Flagged by Science-Integrity Start-Up.” Nature, October 22, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03427-w.

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