Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Perverse incentives and perverse publishing practices

2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 60; Issue: 14 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s11434-015-0846-4

2095-9281

Virginia Barbour,

Ethics in Clinical Research

Over the past few years, publishing has becoming increasingly complex with new journals and business models, new technology, new models of peer review and new ways to collaborate and disseminate research. Alongside this, the pressure on academics to publish has become increasingly intense. Publications have always been the currency of academia—the key to tenure, grant renewal and promotion. Now, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that publications can have direct monetary value in terms of increased salaries, bonuses and jobs. Publishing is built on trust—from the first part of an idea for a study through to the final published work. This trust involves multiple interactions between authors, publishers, editors and reviewers. However, we know unfortunately that trust can be misplaced. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) [1] is just one of a number of organizations of publishers, journals and institutions that have worked for many years to put guidelines in place for everyone involved in publishing to follow. But, in an era where the rewards for publishing appear to outweigh the risk of being caught, more and more complex methods of deception are being developed, and these have spawned an industry— ‘‘academic article brokering’’. Two particular scams that have come to light recently highlight a number of the complexities that exist as a result of the incentive structure and international nature of publishing, which these brokers have exploited. The first scam concerns reviews that were fabricated. This is not a new problem in that isolated incidents of fake reviewers came to light several years ago in cases presented at COPE forums [2]. However, an investigation by BioMed Central [3] has shown a much more systematic attempt to deceive. BioMed Central uncovered evidence of repeated and inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review process of several journals through the suggestion of fabricated peer reviewers for papers. The fabricated reviewer addresses were provided on submission by either authors or more likely by agencies offering language-editing and submitting the papers on the authors’ behalf. The peer reviewers suggested looked like real people: for example in many cases, they had the names of known researchers but with fabricated email addresses. Based on the judgement of the journal editors, sometimes review invitations were then sent to the fake addresses by the journals, and credible reviews were submitted that led to papers being accepted by the journals in good faith. The work done to uncover this deception was substantial and led to the realisation that this was likely to be not the work of individuals working alone but had become a lucrative business practice carried out by companies that manage publishing for authors who were desperate to publish in English language journals. Such fraud may extend beyond simply supplying fake reviewers: similar organizations are thought to sell readywritten papers to authors desperate for publication [4, 5]. These actions by companies that subvert the review process are especially damaging for companies that are working legitimately to aid authors, and which may be tarnished by association. BioMed Central is to be commended for their actions in bringing this set of fraudulent practices to light. After discussions at COPE, other journals have subsequently discovered that they were potential targets, for example by finding that large numbers of fake reviewer emails being registered within their own journals’ databases. More retractions due to fabricated reviewers may follow if V. Barbour (&) Chair, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Brisbane, Australia e-mail: cope_chair@publicationethics.org