LUANA GEIGERThere are certain academic publications, dubbed “predatory journals,” that are known for publishing papers without submitting them to genuine peer review—one need only pay a fee to see an article published. Researcher Alexander Martin, of the University of Kentucky College of Engineering in the United States, demonstrated that the types of problems caused by these journals can be more serious than imagined.
Martin selected journals from a list, containing more than 1,000 probably predatory periodicals, updated by researchers from the University of Colorado. His intent was to submit to the publishers of those journals some papers that under normal conditions would never be accepted for publication—and see what kind of reaction he got. The first attempt was made with an online journal entitled International Journal of Comprehensive Research in Biological Sciences, based in India. Martin sent a manuscript, a text of only 153 words, the subject of which was bats, copied from school work done by his 7-year old son Tristan. The text quoted phrases written by the boy, such as “bats are really neat animals,” or “they sleep during the day and fly at night.” The journal promptly sent an email asking that the authors submit at least five references. Martin answered the requests. A new email reported that the article had been preliminarily accepted for publication. Attached was a note charging a fee of $60.00.
“Based on previous experience, I expected that some journals would accept that kind of article, but this happened on the very first attempt,” wrote Martin on the site Retraction Watch, referring to cases such as the publication of fake articles that made no sense, produced by a computer program (see Pesquisa FAPESP Issue nº 219).
Martin did not pay the fee. Weeks later, he received a second email from the publisher, again charging $60.00 and presenting a new version of the text, this one already reviewed and ready for publication. The manuscript had been completely rewritten in scientific language—only the title and authors remained the same. Martin’s first impression was positive, but soon he discovered that there was something wrong: the article had become a collage of excerpts plagiarized from two other papers, a fraud committed by the publishers of the journal themselves. “I was shocked to think that someone could do something like that,” said Martin. “Those journals have a very negative impact on the scientific community and everyone needs to be aware of this.” The Indian journal no longer exists—its site went off the air in January. Martin reported the lessons learned from the episode in an article published in the journal Learned Publishing.
Scientific article
MARTIN, A. et al. A not-so-harmless experiment in predatory open access publishing. Learned Publishing. v. 29, No. 4, pp. 301-05. October 2016.
