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Catherine Caldwell-Harris's avatar

I was browsing 'What actions do journals take if a submitted article contains fraud'; I stumbled upon the reality of authorship for sale. Had no idea this was a thing.

https://retractionwatch.com/2023/09/08/frontiers-retracts-nearly-40-papers-linked-to-authorship-for-sale

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Connor Patrick Wood's avatar

Oh man. I imagine the tsunami of this kind of slop is only just getting started

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Catherine Caldwell-Harris's avatar

I hadn't even thought that far ahead. :-(. Like, 25 years ago the tsunami of for-profit (fake) conferences and predatory journals had only begun.

The appearance of fake research will make it harder for unknown researchers and those from low-income countries to get started, because people will only want to read the research of vetted and known researchers. An unknown name spells possible fraud.

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Connor Patrick Wood's avatar

Sort of like how emails from weird conferences in southeast Asia that strangely want you to be the keynote speaker in a field 180 degrees away from your own go right to spam.

The proliferation of scams to me is just more evidence that academia is overbuilt. If the bubble bursts (continues bursting?) and academia loses some prestige perceived value, maybe some of the scams will dry up a bit as well.

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Catherine Caldwell-Harris's avatar

Interesting angle... scams will die up if academia loses prestige.

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