Cybercrimeology

Fake It Until You Break It: The pay-to-publish paper mills exploiting the over metrification of Science

Episode Summary

When fake science can be bought, what happens to the value of real research? Dr. Sarah Eaton from the University of Calgary and Dr. Sabina Alam from Taylor & Francis discuss the collaborative efforts of United2Act.org to combat the global threat of scientific paper mills. We explore what these organizations are, how they operate, and what can be done to push back against fraudulent publishing in the digital age.

Episode Notes

Notes:

• Paper mills are fraudulent commercial enterprises that fabricate scientific papers and sell authorship, citations, and other academic credentials—often at scale.
• Sarah Eaton and Sabina Alam first collaborated through COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and later worked together in United2Act, an international initiative focused on tackling paper mills.
• The conversation draws parallels between scientific paper mills and contract cheating in higher education, both of which undermine academic integrity for financial gain.
• Eaton and Alam discuss how metrics-based performance systems in universities and publishing environments create conditions ripe for abuse.
• Publishers and universities historically avoided transparency, but the scale of the problem has led to greater collaboration between stakeholders.
• The duo share insights into early warning signs of fraudulent submissions and describe the development of technological and administrative countermeasures.
• Particular attention is given to the harm paper mills cause: from corrupting citation networks to potentially endangering lives with fabricated data in medical journals.
• The “Andrew Vickers Curse” is discussed as a case study illustrating how citation manipulation by paper mills can entangle innocent researchers.
• The episode closes with a call for broader participation in the second phase of United2Act, particularly from research funders, IT specialists, and institutional stakeholders.

About our guests:

Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton

https://profiles.ucalgary.ca/sarah-eaton

https://drsaraheaton.com/about/

Dr. Sabina Alam

https://www.taylorandfrancis.com/about/ethics-integrity/

https://www.csescienceeditor.org/article/dr-sabina-alam-shaping-critical-thinking-about-science/

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

United2Act initiative: https://united2act.org

Magazinov, Alexander. (2023). The Andrew Vickers Curse: secret revealed!, For Better Science

https://forbetterscience.com/2023/07/31/the-vickers-curse-secret-revealed/

Other:

Glossary of terms and acronyms:

• COPE – Committee on Publication Ethics: An international body that provides advice to editors and publishers on all aspects of publication ethics.
• STM – International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers: A global trade association supporting academic publishing and information dissemination.
• Q1/Q2 Journal – Journals ranked in the top (Q1) or second (Q2) quartile based on impact metrics such as citation counts or journal reputation.
• Term paper mill – A business that sells pre-written or custom academic papers, often used in contract cheating by students.
• Contract cheating – A form of academic dishonesty where students outsource assessments to third parties.
• Retraction – The removal of a published article from the scientific record, typically due to error or misconduct.
• Desk reject – When a manuscript is rejected by a journal editor before it is sent out for peer review.
• Citation ring – A group of papers or authors who cite each other extensively to artificially inflate citation metrics.
• Paper Mills - Organisations or individuals that aim to profit from the creation, sale, peer review and/or citation of manuscripts at scale which contain low value or fraudulent content and/or authorship, with the aim of publication in scholarly journals.

A big thank you to the United2Act people for coming out of their comfort zone and chatting to me about this.  This bravery is how science as an interdisciplinary pursuit driven by curiosity and collaboration happens.