Paying Money To Get Articles Published In Dubious Journals

Folks I received this from an anoynymous sender some time ago. This is about fraudulent behaviour in higher education. This information has been sent around so I am not the only one to have received this. I am running this information with ALL names and identities removed. I believe those whose job it is to know, monitor and regulate such things will already know about this. But has any action been taken? This news is very damaging.

RETRACTION AND PREDATORY JOURNALS: TWO ISSUES HAUNTING HIGHER EDUCATION

The issue of retraction of low quality academic papers and publication in questionable and predatory journals have been highlighted many times in the news. We are Top 10 in both categories !

I would like to remind again the following news:

https://www.malaymail.com/news/what-you-think/2023/12/19/malaysia-is-among-world-top-eight-with-retractions-in-academic-journals-shouldnt-we-be-worried-mohammad-tariqur-rahman/108239

and 2 years ago:

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2021/02/21/malaysian-researchers-opting-for-pay-to-publish-journals-says-study/

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/education/2021/03/07/bringing-an-end-to-predatory-journals

These two issues are interrelated and something should have been done regarding this. Unfortunately instead of tackling the issue, ... has appointed a person who is well known to publish in such predatory journals as the VC of Universiti ...

I would like to provide evidence on this because I myself as an academic faculty member am fed-up with the lackadaisical attitudes in upholding the most important aspect of a university i.e. to appoint someone who upholds the highest professional standards for an academic as a VC. Not someone who has a long record of publishing low quality articles in questionable journals. We have tried to raise this issue many times but no one is willing to listen simply because the person has strong political connection. He knows how to play the political game ...

I would like you to know a list of 74 papers that have been published by the person ..from early 2010 up to 2019. This publication record just shows the number of articles that have been published in journals that are predatory in nature. All of these journals have been banned from Scopus, a database of journals owned by Elsevier, the major publishing company. The data is still in Scopus up until the year the journals are blacklisted from Scopus.

• These articles were published by paying sums of money to the publishers.  
• Some of these publishers are unknown based somewhere within small offices all around the world. 
• These are not reputable publishers at all. 
• We are not talking about 1-2 articles but 74 articles, which is huge number for an academic.

You can see that the articles are sometimes unrelated to the title of the journals. For example, 2 articles published in International Journal of En...ng and Te...logy are remotely related to Engineering and Technology.

• Family support indices for substance abuser in T.......nu (Artikel no )
• Evaluation of drug addicts rate with environmental components study in T.........u,  (Artikel No )

Both of these articles have nothing to do with the expertise of the writer (with a PhD in h......gy) but these articles were published anyway without proper peer review by international experts. Internal reviews were conducted by “friends” of the person. This is clearly an example of the abuse and unethical behaviour that has tarnished the reputation of Malaysian academics.

Another 2 good examples are as follow:
• ... Islamic  (Artikel No )
• Contemporary islamic .. .(Artikel No )

Again, the writer's expertise is in h.......y but how can he publish on Islamic ... ? These articles were published in the so called .. .. .Sciences journal. Both articles have nothing to do with advances in natural and applied science. However if you pay the money, the articles can be published.

In 20_ _ also, the person acted as a Guest Editor of the International .. .. .. .. .and Tech (U_E). He managed to publish 33 articles in a single volume in that journal just to increase the number of publications. He put his name in all articles since he was the guest journal editor. Again this was simply nonsense but was published anyway because some money was paid to the publisher based in India (even though the address was shown as UAE). No reputable journal in the world will allow such practices.

I am highlighting this to all of you because we (the academics) are fed-up that nothing was done to correct this attitude at the highest level. Please highlight this because this is a major scandal within the universities. If a Chairman ... has tarnished the professional standards, how do you expect other unethical academics who want easy ways to become professor to react? They see such a “good” example being shown by a VC. In fact in ... and probably other universities also, there are many professors who have obtained their professorships with low quality publications like this.

I cannot disclose my full name because I am still working in a university and my future can be damaged if my identity is known.

Please, for the sake of the universities, highlight this issue and ask .... to remove the person as VC as an example on how .. ..  will not condone the practice. Ask ..  .. to clean up the higher education sector by upholding the highest professional standards. In other well established universities overseas, someone like this person will not even be considered to become a professor let alone becoming a VC.

This information can be checked with Higher Education, to verify the facts. But I can assure you that these facts are correct.

Again, Please save higher education !!

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.