At first glance, this list of foreign authors from Vietnam may seem "strange", but in fact these are quite familiar names in the academic world with superlative international publication productivity associated with the names of a number of universities.
4 authors write 1 address
Preecha Yupapin was the head of the computational optics research group at Ton Duc Thang University from 2016 to 2021. His name is still listed on the university's website.
According to statistics, in the period 2000-2022, Preecha Yupapin published 658 articles, of which about 1/3, or more than 200 articles, listed the address of Ton Duc Thang University. During her time working for Ton Duc Thang University, Preecha Yupapin also published articles listing the addresses of several universities in Thailand (King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Kasem Bundit University...).
Preecha Yupapin has also published at least 8 articles with the address of Van Lang University, all in 2022, of which 4 were Preecha Yupapin's corresponding author and 4 were the first author. Preecha Yupapin's article was once removed by the journal Procedia Engineering of Elsevier for plagiarism.
Iraj Sadegh Amiri is on the list of permanent lecturers who are in charge of teaching and calculating enrollment quotas at Ton Duc Thang University from 2019 to 2021. According to statistics, in the period 2000-2022, Iraj Sadegh Amiri published 382 articles, of which at least 280 articles listed the address of Ton Duc Thang University.
The period when Amiri was on the Ton Duc Thang University's personnel list was also the year of his super-productive publishing: 70 articles in 2018, 104 articles in 2019 and 71 articles in 2020.
Ahmad Shafee only published his first scientific article in 2018 but immediately became a super productive author in the following two years, 2019 and 2020, with 62 and 70 articles/year, respectively. Of Ahmad Shafee's nearly 200 published articles, more than 70 were addressed to Duy Tan University, published in the three years 2020-2022, although this person has never been on the list of permanent lecturers of the school.
During his time posting for Duy Tan University, Ahmad Shafee also posted many articles with the address of Ton Duc Thang University even though he was not a faculty member of this university. During this time, Ahmad Shafee also posted articles with the addresses of schools in Malaysia and Kuwait.
Hossein Moayedi is one of the authors whose Vietnamese address (Duy Tan University) appears in the "world's top scientists" ranking of Research.com, which Tuoi Tre reported in the article "World's top scientists" ranking: Too chaotic" (Tuoi Tre, June 3, 2024).
According to statistics, Hossein Moayedi has published more than 160 articles for Duy Tan University, although his name is not on the list of staff of this university. It is difficult to determine where Hossein Moayedi actually works because the address in this author's articles changes continuously during the same period of time, sometimes stating Duy Tan University, other times stating Ton Duc Thang University or schools in Iran, Malaysia. Hossein Moayedi's latest articles published in 2024 still state Duy Tan University's address.
Super Productive Writers Chart *
* Highly productive authors (publishing at least 73 articles/year) or near highly productive authors (publishing 61 to 72 articles/year), excluding physics.
"Unable to provide information"
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Nghiem Quy Hao - in charge of the communications and public relations department, Ton Duc Thang University - said: "The cases mentioned by Tuoi Tre newspaper in the questions are personnel who previously signed contracts with the school. However, up to this point, the above personnel as well as those in charge of the work of those personnel are no longer working at the school.
The school is continuing to review these personnel and needs more time to review. Currently, the competent authorities are working with the school on this issue. At the request of the authorities, the school is temporarily unable to provide any further information."
Similarly, Tuoi Tre also contacted Duy Tan University and sent questions related to the school. At that time, a school leader said: "The school's science and technology department is on summer break and will resume work after August 20. I will forward it to the department in charge."
We then continued to contact the school but so far there has been no response.
The hyper-productive author stopped publishing articles.
Among the 5 foreign super-productive authors with Vietnamese addresses, currently only Hossein Moayedi still has his latest articles published in 2024 with Duy Tan University as his address.
Meanwhile, after ceasing to post for Duy Tan University and Ton Duc Thang University around the beginning of 2021, another super-productive author, Ahmad Shafee, only publishes a few articles per year, with the address of a school in Kuwait.
Similarly, since terminating his contract with Ton Duc Thang University, Iraj Sadegh Amiri has also stopped publishing. He is currently no longer posting for any other school and has moved to work at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) in the US.
Two universities owe super-productive author billions?
In early August 2024, speaking to Tuoi Tre reporters via email, author Preecha Yupapin said: "I have retired. Since last year, I have no longer been associated with any school. I quit working for Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU) because my contract with this school ended in 2021 and due to the COVID-19 pandemic. TDTU did not pay me the announcement bonus, which amounted to a billion VND.
I have been working for Van Lang University (VLU) under a part-time contract since I left TDTU. Accordingly, I will receive a publication bonus, but currently VLU has not paid me this amount, up to 1 billion VND.
Responding to Tuoi Tre, the leader of Van Lang University affirmed that author Preecha Yupapin has never been an official employee of VLU in any form. At the same time, he said that VLU's STAI Institute had previously discussed with Mr. Preecha Yupapin about working conditions at VLU as a researcher. However, VLU did not sign a contract to recruit Yupapin and did not cooperate with this author in any form.
"Up to this point, there has been no agreement (oral, email, written) exchanged/implemented between STAI, VLU and author Preecha Yupapin. This author has arbitrarily included VLU's name in some international articles. The fact that Preecha Yupapin included VLU's email address in some articles was created by the author herself because the university has never provided any official VLU email address to this person.
STAI has never agreed on the recruitment or research implementation plan with author Preecha Yupapin. Since this author is not a VLU employee in any form, the school does not have clear information about all scientific articles that the author has listed the address of VLU. The school does not pay any income to Preecha Yupapin," this person affirmed.
Regarding the document said to be a work contract that Mr. Preecha Yupapin provided to Tuoi Tre reporter, VLU affirmed that this is not a contract (it is only a draft proposal for a work plan).
According to the current recruitment process, the institute will send the work plan form to the candidate in advance. If the candidate agrees, he/she will complete the work plan, sign it and send it back to the institute for confirmation (in this case, the institute has not signed the confirmation, only Mr. Yupapin's signature is present). After that, the institute will review the approval and propose the school to sign the contract. Mr. Yupapin's case was not approved to sign the contract.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bat-ngo-tac-gia-sieu-nang-suat-ky-2-tac-gia-nguoi-nuoc-ngoai-la-ma-quen-20240925095006535.htm
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