This journal published our editorial mocking it

A website accused of publishing fake science has posted an editorial saying that it, and others like it, are “predators” that treat legitimate scientists as suckers.

It’s an editorial that was written and submitted by the Citizen, as part of our own little experiment.

Scientists should “park any ethics at the door” before publishing in the Journal of Applied Molecular Cell Biology, the journal’s own editorial adds.

We suspect the journal may have published the piece online without actually reading it — which would explain why it allowed its own editorial to accuse it of cheating, of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing that preys on scientists, of self-aggrandizement and of smelling bad.

The publisher is Consortium Publication of Saskatoon, which publishes using the logo and links of the Indian company OMICS International. OMICS publishes about 700 low-quality online journals and has recently been acquiring Canadian journals that were formerly independent.

Jeffrey Beall of the University of Colorado, the leading authority in “predatory” science journals that imitate real science publishers for money, puts both OMICS and Consortium on his predators list, which is widely used as reference by scientists.

Now Consortium has published the Citizen-penned editorial, which includes such non-scientific parlance and notions as “suckers are born every minute.”

Consortium had been messaging professors, asking them to join its editorial board. A Citizen reporter volunteered to join their board, claiming to have a PhD in the phrenology of earthworms. (Phrenology is a pseudo-science that examines bumps on the skull to understand a person’s character.)

Consortium accepted, then asked for an editorial. It accepted the Citizen’s editorial a few days later and, without changing a word, put it online Wednesday.

The journal told the Citizen it didn’t edit the submission or review its content because it is an editorial, not research. It also says that it is affiliated with OMICS, but not owned by it.

Underlying the publication of a ridiculous editorial are real problems for the science world.

Websites are marketing themselves to scientists who need to publish to get jobs or promotions. But such websites don’t bother with the crucial step of quality control, a system called “peer review.”

Any action that bypasses strict peer review is considered scientific fraud, because it opens the door to everything from shoddy research to conspiracy theories, which then circulate on social media appearing to be real research.

This low-quality publishing can provide career advancement to some in parts of the developing world.

The website Retraction Watch, an authority on ethics in science, noted recently that the Medical Council of India requires researchers “to publish at least four articles to become an associate professor, and eight to become a professor.” It suggests the quota system may be vulnerable to fraud.

There are thousands of predatory journals trying to meet some of this demand. This system promotes professors who will train the next generation of doctors, engineers and scientists.

Senior, legitimate professors have become the public faces of low-quality or even fraudulent journals, often with no understanding of how their identities are being used. This month, the Citizen tracked down the editor-in-chief of an OMICS journal that published amateur poetry and claimed it was psychology research. We asked why it was published.

The listed editor, who has a research chair at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, was baffled. She wrote to the Citizen: “Thank you so much for contacting me. I was asked to serve as an editor for this journal, but I actually have not yet reviewed any manuscripts and I cannot imagine that the excerpt you sent to me was subject to peer review. I have serious concerns about the peer review process of this journal, and plan to ask for my name to be removed from its editorial board.”

Four weeks later, her name and photo are still there.

Jim Germida is both the executive editor-in-chief of Canadian Science Publishing (a real science publisher) and vice-provost of faculty relations at the University of Saskatchewan.

He sees danger with predatory publishers in Canada, and has led workshops on the subject for faculty and students, using the Citizen’s continuing coverage of the issue as teaching material.

In overseeing appointments at his university, “We have actually discovered people who have published in predatory journals or are sitting on an editorial board of one of these journals. And it can get them into big trouble” for associating with an organization that is substandard or worse, he said.