Determination at the macro level is needed.

As Thanh Nien reported, on January 18, the Science magazine news site published an investigation into how article mills (academic business companies) bribed the editorial boards of many scientific journals to ensure their low-quality works (articles) were published. This is a newly discovered large-scale organized fraud. The increasingly sophisticated academic fraud schemes with the main purpose of increasing the number of publications despite their low quality are a painful reality that many countries with developing science, including Vietnam, have to face.

Thanh Nien Newspaper once had a series of articles reflecting on "supermen" providing services to publish articles in international scientific journals.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Dr Nicholas Wise, a fluid dynamics researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK), told Science magazine: As an expert on scientific fraud, he has long witnessed the buying and selling of authorship. This situation stems from the increasing pressure on scientists around the world to publish even when they lack the resources to conduct quality research.

To meet the publication needs of many scientists, intermediary services were born (in many countries, the scale of operation of these entities is similar to factories and companies producing scientific articles). Intermediary services are the key to help parties secretly (sometimes openly) trade tens to hundreds of thousands of fake, poor quality articles each year.

According to Science , China is a major market for paper mills. In this country, publishing papers is still the easiest way to get promoted and advance in the academic environment. However, due to lack of time or training to do serious research, many scientists are willing to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have their names in papers, and see it as an investment that is "worth the money".

In Russia and some post-Soviet countries, policies that emphasize publication metrics (such as number of articles, number of citations, journal impact factor) combined with a corrupt environment produce a similar situation.

Research performance is also becoming increasingly important in India as universities compete for rankings and researchers use it to compete for good jobs (some Indian universities even require undergraduates to publish papers).

In Vietnam, various investigations by Thanh Nien Newspaper also show that since the government and universities' policies emphasized international publication, the market for buying and selling scientific articles has also formed and developed, with very diverse forms of transactions. There have even been some intermediary services for buying and selling articles under the guise of "consulting", "coaching", "training"... A typical case is Dinh Tran Ngoc Huy, a "superman" who provides international article publishing services ( Thanh Nien had an investigative article about Mr. Huy's activities 2 years ago).

Most recently, after the results of the 2023 Professor and Associate Professor examinations, Thanh Nien also received a complaint from a reader about a case of a candidate who met the Associate Professor standards in law and was a client of Dinh Tran Ngoc Huy. Looking at this candidate's Associate Professor profile, we found that the candidate had 2 articles that Dinh Tran Ngoc Huy co-authored. In addition, many evidences (such as Thanh Nien 's series of articles about article selling factories in Russia) show that many Vietnamese researchers are customers of scientific article production and selling services.

PUBLISHING HOUSES ARE "SURROUNDED ON ALL SIDES"

Before the results of the Science investigation, which Thanh Nien recently summarized, the scientific community still believed that the reason thousands of fake articles from intermediary services or article mills could be published successfully in international journals was due to lax peer-review processes, irresponsible reviewers and editorial boards. But after the Science investigation, the scientific community was shocked to learn another reason for the existence of fake articles in seemingly trustworthy journals.

After the scandal broke, publishers tried to play the “victim” role. Sharing with Science , publishers admitted that they were “surrounded on all sides”. A spokesperson for Elsevier said that the publisher’s editors regularly received offers of “bribes”. The director of ethics and publishing integrity at Taylor & Francis also said that bribery attempts had been directed at their editors and that this was a real concern. Jean-François Nierengarten, a researcher at the University of Strasbourg and co-editor of the Wiley journal Chemistry-A European Journal, said he received a letter from someone who claimed to be working with “young scholars” in China, offering to pay him $3,000 for each article he helped publish in his journal.

However, according to Science , the publishers are not "innocent". After discovering the activities of Olive Academic Company, in July 2023, Dr. Nicholas Wise informed a number of major publishers involved. Most promised to investigate and contact back. However, so far Dr. Nicholas Wise has not received any response. Speaking to Science , Mr. Matt Hodgkinson, an expert from the UK's Office for Research Integrity, said that the collusion between the article mills and editors creates organized criminal gangs that commit fraud on a large scale.

Some Vietnamese scientists also said that they realized that publishers are actually very greedy. Although they know that special issues are the favorite targets of article mills, many publishers still continue to open tens of thousands of special issues to earn more publishing fees from authors.

Image advertised on Facebook about bribing the editorial boards of many scientific journals to ensure the publication of his poor quality scientific work (articles). (until deleted)

N Tough Actions of Countries

As we have said above, academic fraud is a prominent problem in countries with developing science. Some countries have begun to realize the danger that this situation threatens the development of science in their country, so they have begun to show decisive reactions to eliminate fraud in scientific activities.

In December 2023, Science reported that Peru was cracking down on scientific fraudsters . Accordingly, Peruvian lawmakers are ready to pass two laws to investigate and punish researchers who commit fraudulent acts in scientific publications, such as paying to become authors of articles. Previously, Peru's national science agency removed the names of two researchers accused of fraud from the national scientific registration system Renacyt (being listed in Renacyt is a necessary condition for receiving funding from the Government , considering salary increases or promotions). Peruvian authorities are also investigating many others after 180 scientists in the country were accused of being involved in publication fraud, including 72 people listed in Renacyt working at 14 universities in Peru.

In early 2022, the Bangkok Post also reported that Thailand's Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) had discovered 33 researchers from eight universities who had committed fraud by paying to have their names on scientific papers. In addition, MHESI will investigate another 100 university lecturers who have committed similar acts. The MHESI minister also called on universities to take legal action against cases of academic fraud such as plagiarism or paying for papers.

In Vietnam, although the media (typically Thanh Nien Newspaper) has reported many cases of suspected article trading or other acts that violate scientific integrity, the parties involved have tried to "deal with it smoothly", or even ignored it. The decision-making power is mainly given to academic councils, who do not have the function and expertise to investigate fraud.

There has been almost no investigation by the authorities into individuals accused of fraud. Even the proposal to establish a specialized agency for scientific integrity has been deemed unnecessary by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education and Training.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/chong-gian-lan-hoc-thuat-can-su-quyet-tam-o-tam-vi-mo-185240123203537649.htm