Research paper mill

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Academic paper mill" redirects here. Not to be confused with Essay mill.

In research, a paper mill is a business that publishes poor or fake journal papers that seem to resemble genuine research, as well as sells authorship.[1][2]

In some cases, paper mills are sophisticated operations that sell authorship positions on legitimate research, but in many cases the papers contain fraudulent data and can be heavily plagiarized or otherwise unprofessional.[3][4] According to a report from Nature, thousands of papers in academic journals have been traced to paper mills from China, Iran and Russia, and some journals are revamping their review processes."[3] Chinese researchers have been identified as particularly prevalent customers of paper mill services.[5] Differing estimates put the share of paper mill productions between 2% and 20% of published academic papers, with particularly severe problems in some areas of biomedicine.[2][5][6]

It is a problem of

retractions in the scientific literature (scientific journals, academic journals, or medical journals
).

Examples

Depiction of a coordinated publishing ring associated with paper mill International Publisher Ltd. Figure 4 from Abalkina (2022).[7]

In early 2022,

Kassel University Press) alone, seemingly coordinated through the involvement of journal editors hosting Special Issues with space for coauthors auctioned off for anywhere from $180–5000 USD. In a separate network, guest editors and salaried academic editors for MDPI were found to coordinate sale of authorship across four different MDPI journals, totalling over 20 papers (picture, right).[7] Beyond collusion between editors and International Publisher Ltd., many legitimate research papers also sold authorship unknown to the journal editors, and were ultimately accepted in journals published by Elsevier, Oxford University Press, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wolters Kluwer, and Wiley-Blackwell. As of April 6, 2022, many of these publishers have opened an investigation into the matter.[4]

In May 2024, the

Wall Street Journal published a report on fake studies that affected New Jersey publisher Wiley. More that 11,300 papers were retracted, and 19 journals were reportedly closed. The problematic papers were linked to Hindawi, an Egyptian publisher of about 250 scientific journals that Wiley acquired in 2021.[10][11] The article detailed how the research paper mill fraud worked, and highlighted individual efforts to identify and prevent future fraud. The article also warned that artificial intelligence was going to make fraud more difficult to detect.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via paper mills: Forum discussion topic September 2020". Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  2. ^
    PMID 38243120
    .
  3. ^
    PMID 33758408
    .
  4. ^ a b c Chawla, Dalmeet (2022-04-06). "Russian site peddles paper authorship in reputable journals for up to $5000 a pop". www.science.org. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
  5. ^ a b "China's fake science industry: how 'paper mills' threaten progress". www.ft.com. 2023.
  6. ^ "Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common". Science. 2023-05-09.
  7. ^
    doi:10.1002/leap.1574
    .
  8. ^ "Academic fraud factories are booming, warns plagiarism sleuth". Times Higher Education (THE). 2022-01-19. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  9. ^ "Publication and Collaboration Anomalies in Academic Papers Originating From a Russian-Based Paper Mill". Peer Review Congress. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  10. ^
    Wall Street Journal
    . Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  11. ^ "Wiley Announces the Acquisition of Hindawi". Wiley.com. January 5, 2021. Retrieved May 24, 2024.
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