The pseudo-academic scam machine (or how to pad your r
ElectricAye
Posts: 4,561
An interesting article on a disturbing trend in the world of scientific and technical publishing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?hp&_r=0
I'm sure it won't be long before it hits the educational world, too, if it hasn't already.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?hp&_r=0
I'm sure it won't be long before it hits the educational world, too, if it hasn't already.
Comments
Of course, if you do want to expedite your career, I have visited a street in Bangkok where you can get a nice set of university degrees ready to frame. Let's see, undergrad work at Harvard, an engineering masters at M.I.T., and a Phd from Stanford. That shouldn't cost more that $200 USD. (I think one degree is about $40-50 USD).
It's not lying if you tell the truth. The problem with these you-pay-it publications is that they aren't exactly what they appear to be.
It is up to the individual as to what they put in a resume, but it is up to the employer to verify and interpret. Every year or so we see someone in a major political office or corporate position that is sent packing for so-called errors or white lies.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2006-02-20-radioshack-ceo_x.htm
http://blogs.computerworld.com/20162/yahoo_ceo_resigns_over_resume_cv_error_thompson_fired_by_loeb
Just Google "CEO resigns resume" and you will see what has been happening. Often the person gets hired, and only later does someone realize the resume is nonsense.
According to the article various academics have been accepting offers to join editorial boards or submitting articles to journals or signing up for conferences only to find out latter that what hey are dealing with is not a legit journal. So if they put that stuff on their CV at some point during all that they are not lying they are acting in good faith.
In one case an academic agreed to speak at a well know conference only to find he had been duped. It was a sham conference bearing almost exactly the same name as the real one. Obviously designed to dupe the unsuspecting.
Seems academics can be greedy for recognition, fame and glory in their fields. It helps get research funding as well as boost their self esteem. So they can be suckers for this kind of scam.
It reminds me of the young girls aspiring to be super models who end up paying huge sums to fake modeling agencies for photo shoots and screen tests and the like.
What you put in your CV and how you verify it reflects upon you. Of course anyone caught might claim they were a victim, but should not there be an 'ah ha' moment when you are asked to pay a rather large fee.
In sum, if you are buying credentials.. buyer beware.
Also in the article. One accademic tells how he submitted an article that was published. Only later did he get demands for the rather large fee which had never been mentioned previously.
Sharks are everywhere.
Khaosan Road?
You can also get press credentials, drivers licenses for many countries and all kinds of 'ID papers' you can think of.
(I think I even saw a couple of IDs for airline staff for a few different airlines... )
Because Thai drivers ed is 'rather lacking', the ease of obtaining a license(fake, bribed, whatever), no Thai drivers license is valid here in Norway. Not even for a limited time, or together with an 'International drivers license'.
When visiting that street, enjoy the music, browse the goods(same junk sold everywhere in Bangkok, really, but mostly at a decent price), eat a Pad Thai and order some tailormade clothes.
A foot massage is also recommended.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaosan_Road
When I first came to Taiwan, my school had a huge number of teacher's with fake university degrees from Khaosan Road. Then one year, the Foreign Affairs Police began checking directly with the universities and we lost about half our teaching staff due to visa cancellations. In the world of global trekker English language teachers, there used to be a very high ratio of fake resumes.
And in teaching in university, I have had obvious problems with students buying papers rather than writing their own. The internet offers all sorts of scams.
I'd would pass on getting a tatto on Khaosan Road or in Thailand at all... a bit risky.
(You're not welcome as a blood donor for a year here afterwards... )
I'd also stay the H! away from 'Henna tattoos'.
sure, they're not permanent... So little permanent that if you're staying at a good hotel, they'll bill you for the bedsheets if they see you have one. That stuff is almost impossible to clean out of fabric. Also, you may end up with 'sensitivity' to certain hair-care products(Especially dark/black hair colours).
I guess I have become an old hand at travel in the backwaters of SE Asia.
Tattoo shops are everywhere in Thailand, and almost always next to a bar or pub. Prices are very, very reasonable by western standards. And alcohol is cheap. The hazard is that you wake up with one and a rather large hangover.
Of course, sporting a flamboyant Thai tattoo might be clear warning that you degree was created on Khaosan Road.
On one extreme, you can get your work published in a journal if it fits the journals scope and reader interest. Essentially, it has to be interesting enough that the journal thinks it will help sell subscriptions to libraries. Did I mention it your paper often has to be short too? It costs money to print pages, so the journals often don't want the articles to be very long. I have seen plenty of papers that are so condensed that very critical details are left out and essentially the research is not replaceable. The results are often also condensed into very simple statements.
The alternative are open-access publications, where the author pays the publishing fee. These seem better to me, as goal is to publish good research, not just interesting research. But man those fees can be expensive. Of course you have to pay, if you want to keep your job. It looks like this article is discussing shady open access journals that are really just about making money. I actually have been unlucky enough to deal with one, although it didn't cost me anything in the end.
Oh, and did I mention that on top of all of this, null-results and results opposing popular concepts are almost impossible to publish. There is a whole world full of procedures that didn't work (null-results) that would actually be really important to know about so the scientific community doesn't waste their time trying those procedures. But those aren't interesting, so they are rarely published.
In the end, research actually becomes publication and funding driven. Some researchers stumble upon a procedure that provides a publishable effect, and stick with that until retirement. Not necessarily because the procedure is that interesting or good, but just because it produces reliable publication. I have actually discovered myself how un-useful some of these procedures are when attempting to replicate someone else's work. Its just a mess. But hey, if I want to have a job, I've got to play the game too. I think the best solution is to play the game just enough to stay in it, and spend the rest of your time actually doing science.
How about if every lab, or every researcher or every research group put up a blog? You know, "Today (or this week or this month or this year or this decade) we did X and Y and Z and the results were X', Y' Z'." Or hey I just spent 10 years thinking about mathematical problem "bla" and it looks like it is solved by "bla bla".
These guys are getting paid to do this, often with public money, so let's see what you got.
Now, perhaps a bit more sophisticated than a blog, but not much. How expensive can that be. Pretty much every one an his dog is doing it today.
"What about the peer review?" I hear you say. Well what about it? You have explained very well that it does not work as well as we would like. Your peers can review your output on a "blog" as well as they can waiting for any journal to publish it. Your reputation will shine and be known if it deserves it.
"How will my institution know whether to make me a professor or not if I don't have a peer reviewed publication record to back me up?" I hear you say. Good question. They just have to come up with a better idea that fits the modern world.
Good point. More and more, researchers are getting fed up with all the follow-up experiments that journal editorial boards often demand before considering a publication. By the time you run their gauntlet, your research is often outdated or irrelevant. Or simply rejected, after all. It seems to me that the scientific publishing world is behind the times, especially in how much they will charge you to read one of their articles on-line. Some researchers have been turning to open-access publishing, skipping peer review, and looking toward something akin to a free market approach insofar as the acceptance/rejection of ideas goes. If a thousand people are citing your research, validating it by building off of it, etc., then it probably ain't all bad. Unfortunately the abovementioned scammers have popped up to make a buck off the open-access trend. Figures.
How on earth did Newton get on back in the day?
I actually really like that idea, and it is one I have often considered myself. I did get a website recently for the purpose of sharing information, primarily related to equipment (I use the propeller a lot). I will publish everything I can within the current system as I won't be able to get a job (still about 2 years away from finishing the phd) and I won't be able to get tenure with out playing the game. After that, everything that I can put on my website, will be on my website. If it is published research, then the abstract and link will suffice, if it is unpublished research, then a brief description or a full unpublished paper can be put on the website. I think it is especially important to make null-results available this way. But really, if it can be made available, then why not? Unfortunately, you still work within the current system, but that doesn't mean that you can also do things your own way. The more researchers do this kind of thing, the easier it is going to be to change the system, or come up with a better one. But the change isn't going to happen overnight.
I've complained for years that the publishing of null results is not available - or apparently even desired. There are brilliant researchers out there asking all the right questions and designing some highly inventive experiments, but because the results were not a "hit", nobody even knows they did the work. And so, not only do those researchers fade into jobless obscurity but then other researchers follow unknowingly in their invisible footsteps and make the same "mistakes" all over again. In this age of cheap publication capability, why hasn't anyone started a website dedicated to "been there done that"? It would be a scientific resource worth its weight in gold. Ads for career crisis counseling could keep it going forever, I'm sure.