Scrape wikipedia-science: 1252 new, 978 updated, 2286 total (kb-cron)

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Pandey-0.md

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+title: "Ashok Pandey"
+chunk: 1/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Pandey"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:20.921984+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Ashok Kumar Pandey (born 1 January 1956) is an Indian chemist and biotechnologist, who had served as Distinguished Scientist at CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, Government of India, and Executive Director at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability. With over 1450 research papers, 16 patents, 95 books, he became India's most prolific researcher. By 2018, he was one of the most highly cited researchers in the world, within the top 1% according to Web of Science; and number 1 from India by 2021. For his enormous research outputs, Human Resource Development minister Shri Prakash Javadekar honoured him as the "most outstanding researcher" in biology in 2018.
+Pandey was the editor and then editor-in-chief of Elsevier's journal Bioresource Technology for over a decade. By 2025, 43 of the research papers he co-authored in the journal were retracted, as Elsevier established that he added his name in those papers and violated the journal's policies in the peer review process. In most of his papers, he added his named after he received the manuscripts, and then handled the entire peer reviewing. Elsevier also retracted several papers by different researchers which Pandey edited and handled the reviewing, but Pandey's name was there in the initial manuscripts and the authors were his collaborators in many of his publications.
+
+== Biography ==
+Pandey was born in Kanpur, Uttarakhand Pradesh. He studied biology and chemistry at Kanpur University (now Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University), obtaining his BSc degree in 1974, at an age of 18. He pursued master's degree in chemistry and graduated in 1976 from the same university. He enrolled for doctoral course at the University of Allahabad, earning his D.Phil. degree in 1979 in chemistry with a research focus on microbiology. His research was supervised by organic chemist K.P. Tiwari on lactic acid fermentation, the first papers of which were published in 1979. Between 1979 and 1982, he continued in the same department as a post-doctoral scholar, and published several papers on his thesis subject.
+In 1982, Pandey got an appointment as a scientist at the National Sugar Institute, Kanpur, where he worked till 1985. He became a research scientist at Suddeutsche Zucker AG in Germany. After working there for a year, he joined CSIR National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (CSIR-NIIST) at Trivandrum as a full scientist in 1987. He retired from CSIR-NIIST in 2015 and became Distinguished Scientist at the Center of Innovative and Applied Bioprocessing (CIAB), an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. In 2018, he continued as Distinguished Scientist at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research in Lucknow.
+Pandey joined the editorial board of Elsevier's journal Bioresource Technology in 2004, becoming the executive editor in 2010 and editor-in-chief in 2011.
+
+== Awards and honours ==
+Pandey was awarded the Young Scientist Award from the Department of Science and Technology, Trivandrum in 1989, the GBF fellowship of Germany and CNRS fellowship of France Fellowships in 1992, the Raman Research Fellowship Award from CSIR in 1995, and UNESCO Professor in 2000.
+In 2018, the Web of Science analysis included Pandey in the top 1% of the most highly cited researchers in the world, and top 10 in India. To honour his prolific outputs Human Resource Development minister Prakash Javadekar honoured him with the "most outstanding researcher" award in biology, among 17 other researchers in various field, in 2018. The honour was accompanied by Life-Time Achievement Award from the Biotech Research Society, Life-Time Achievement Award from Venus International Research Awards, and Most Outstanding Researcher Award from Career360. His Web of Science ranking and citation index grew steadily since then. By 2021, he became number 1 most cited researchers from India.
+Pandey is elected fellow of the Biotech Research Society (2005), International Organization of Biotechnology and Bioengineering (2007), Association of Microbiologists of India (2008), National Academy of Sciences (2012), International Society for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (2016), and the Royal Society of Biology (2016).
+
+== Publication controversy ==
+Pandey's first paper to be retracted was a case of irreproducible research data. He described a new species of soil bacteria in 2012, named Micrococcus niistensis after his work place at the time, the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST). The publisher, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, retracted the paper on the ground that there was not "sufficient evidence" to identify the reported specimen as a new species as the researchers failed to deposit the pure culture of the specimen required for taxonomic validation.
+By September 2024, 45 papers by Pandey were retracted by different journals. Pandey published 43 research papers in Bioresource Technology alone, 1 during his position as an editor, 1 as the executive editor, and the rest as the editor-in-chief. All the papers were retracted by 2025 when Elsevier made an investigation on the alleged malpractices of Pandey as the author in these papers. According to Elsevier, the reason was "violations of the journal's policies on authorship and conflict of interest related to the submission and review of this [specified in the retraction note] paper."

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+---
+title: "Ashok Pandey"
+chunk: 2/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Pandey"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:20.921984+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Modus operandi ===
+Pandey had no research or intellectual contributions to most of the retracted papers. As Elsevier investigation announced, different researchers submit their manuscripts to the journal, he returned the manuscript and when the authors revised and resubmit their manuscript, his name was incorporated as one of the authors. Then, he handled the entire peer reviewing process. The same pattern was verified in 35 of his research papers. As Elsevier retraction notice described:Review of the initial submission of this paper was handled by the then journal Editor-in-Chief (Ashok Pandey) and revision required. Upon submission of the revised version, the journal Editor-in-Chief was added as a co-author. No justification was provided for this addition. A second editor was assigned to the paper, eventually accepting the paper for publication. This compromised the editorial process and breached the journal's policies.Elsevier also pointed out that Pandey's name was in four other research papers in which his name was included in the initial manuscripts, but was removed in the final publication. It is Elsevier's policy that if any editor is an author or co-author in the same journal, editorial duty and peer reviewing are handled by other editors. In his defence, Pandey told The Hindu that he knew as an editor that he handled the entire publication but blamed the journal manager for not assigning other editors. His co-author in two retracted papers, Anil Kumar Patel at Korea University also concurred remarking that the journal manager failed the responsibility but that Pandey's conduct was unethical.
+Pandey was an inveterate manipulator as an editor. Not only were his authored papers retracted by Bioresource Technology, but several others in which he was the handling editor. The general stratagem he used were:
+
+Assign reviewers from his circle of collaborators with whom he had authored several papers;
+Add names of his collaborators during revision of the manuscript "without validation or authorisation", as Elsevier noted.
+Inform the authors to add his papers in the citation. In one instance, the original manuscript had 3 of his papers cited but 10 in the published version.
+In another case, Pandey was involved in an extensive plagiarism. A review paper titled "Metagenomics for taxonomy profiling: tools and approaches" he published in Taylor & Francis's Bioengineered in 2020 was found to contain texts copied from other published papers. The paper was retracted in 2022.
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expression_of_concern-0.md

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+---
+title: "Expression of concern"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expression_of_concern"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:09.711477+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+In academic publishing, an expression of concern is a notice issued by a publisher against a particular publication, warning that it may contain errors or be otherwise untrustworthy.
+
+
+== Definitions ==
+Expressions of concern are part of the post-publication process used to maintain the integrity of the scientific record. They are typically issued when credible allegations regarding the validity or ethics of a study arise, but conclusive evidence is not yet available to justify a retraction or correction. In such cases, journal editors may publish a statement indicating that concerns have been raised and that the article is under investigation.
+
+
+== Guidelines and editorial practices ==
+Publishing practices around expressions of concern vary between journals and publishers. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommends their use when:
+
+There is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct.
+There is evidence that the findings are unreliable, but the authors' institution has not investigated or refused to investigate.
+An investigation is ongoing and a judgment is not yet available.
+The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors also acknowledges the role of expressions of concern in its 2019 recommendations that a publisher may choose to issue an expression of concern while an investigation of alleged scientific misconduct is ongoing, and pending its outcome.
+COPE further advises that expressions of concern should be clearly labeled, linked to the original article, and should explain the reasons for the concern without making definitive conclusions.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Erratum
+Post-publication peer review
+Retractions in academic publishing
+
+
+== Notes ==
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauthentic_text-0.md

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+---
+title: "Inauthentic text"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauthentic_text"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:10.872686+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+An inauthentic text is a computer-generated expository document meant to appear as genuine, but which is actually meaningless.  Frequently they are created in order to be intermixed with genuine documents and thus manipulate the results of search engines, as with Spam blogs.  They are also carried along in email in order to fool spam filters by giving the spam the superficial characteristics of legitimate text.
+Sometimes nonsensical documents are created with computer assistance for humorous effect, as with Dissociated press or Flarf poetry.  They have also been used to challenge the veracity of a publication—MIT students submitted papers generated by a computer program called SCIgen to a conference, where they were initially accepted.  This led the students to claim that the bar for submissions was too low.
+With the amount of computer generated text outpacing the ability of people to humans to curate it, there needs some means of distinguishing between the two.  Yet automated approaches to determining absolutely whether a text is authentic or not face intrinsic challenges of semantics.  Noam Chomsky coined the phrase "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" giving an example of grammatically correct, but semantically incoherent sentence; some will point out that in certain contexts one could give this sentence (or any phrase) meaning.
+The first group to use the expression in this regard can be found below from Indiana University.  Their work explains in detail an attempt to detect inauthentic texts and identify pernicious problems of inauthentic texts in cyberspace.  The site has a means of submitting text that assesses, based on supervised learning, whether a corpus is inauthentic or not.  Many users have submitted incorrect types of data and have correspondingly commented on the scores. This application is meant for a specific kind of data; therefore, submitting, say, an email, will not return a meaningful score.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Scraper site
+Spamdexing
+Stochastic parrot
+
+
+== External links ==
+An Inauthentic Paper Detector from Indiana University School of Informatics

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Research_Watch-0.md

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+---
+title: "India Research Watch"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Research_Watch"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:12.108581+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+India Research Watch (IRW) is a volunteer-run non-profit organization established in 2022 to combat scientific misconduct and research fraud in India. The group monitors cases of suspected research fraud, plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, and related malpractice reported anonymously.
+
+
+== History ==
+IRW was founded in 2022 by Achal Agrawal, an engineer and research scientist who earned a PhD at the Paris-Saclay University. Agrawal, a former professor of computer science, became concerned after he realised that a first-year student had published a research paper by simply paraphrasing another work. In its early work, IRW analysed public databases and launched anonymous tip lines to gather information on suspected misconduct.
+As of July 2025, IRW members, comprising scientists, students, and data analysts from various institutions, investigate tips about suspect papers and flag issues publicly (e.g., on PubPeer or social media) to pressure journals and universities to take disciplinary action. IRW and its founder, Achal Agrawal, were recognised by Nature's 10 in 2025. 
+
+
+== Activities ==
+IRW published an article in The Hindu, on 17 November 2023, presenting data on a rising trend of scientific misconduct by showing evidence from Retraction Data. This article was among the earliest in Indian media to discuss the country’s retraction rates in academic publishing.
+For example, in 2023 IRW compiled data showing that 58 papers by Indian Institutes of Technology faculty had been retracted (for plagiarism or duplication) between 2006 and 2023. IRW’s analyses have examined possible links between institutional ranking systems and instances of research fraud. In recognition of its retraction‑data analyses, IRW received a Digital Science Catalyst Grant to develop PostPub, a platform intended to enhance research accountability. IRW has published reports scrutinising practices such as manipulation of NIRF rankings and irregularities in NAAC accreditation.
+In 2024, Agrawal highlighted flaws in India’s NIRF ranking methodology and its susceptibility to manipulation. Citing alleged irregularities in NAAC assessments, Agrawal has proposed discontinuing the current NAAC rating system. A 2025  Nature article described IRW’s work using the Retraction Watch Database to visualise and analyse retraction trends at Indian institutions.
+At present, IRW is actively engaged in identifying AI-generated falsified results and detecting image manipulation in published research by Indian academics, while also conducting training programmes on ethical research practices.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Publisher_Ltd.-0.md

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 category: "reference"
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+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:13.320986+00:00"
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_science-0.md

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+---
+title: "Invalid science"
+chunk: 1/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_science"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:14.614270+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Invalid science consists of scientific claims based on experiments that cannot be reproduced or that are contradicted by experiments that can be reproduced. Recent analyses indicate that the proportion of retracted claims in the scientific literature is steadily increasing. The number of retractions has grown tenfold over the past decade, but they still make up approximately 0.2% of the 1.4 million papers published annually in scholarly journals.
+The U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) investigates scientific misconduct.
+
+== Incidence ==
+Science magazine ranked first for the number of articles retracted at 70, just edging out PNAS, which retracted 69. 32 of Science's retractions were due to fraud or suspected fraud, and 37 to error. A subsequent "retraction index" indicated that journals with relatively high impact factors, such as Science, Nature and Cell, had a higher rate of retractions. Under 0.1% of papers in PubMed had were retracted of more than 25 million papers going back to the 1940s.
+The fraction of retracted papers due to scientific misconduct was estimated at two-thirds, according to studies of 2,047 papers published since 1977. Misconduct included fraud and plagiarism. Another one-fifth were retracted because of mistakes, and the rest were pulled for unknown or other reasons.
+A separate study analyzed 432 claims of genetic links for various health risks that vary between men and women. Only one of these claims proved to be consistently reproducible. Another meta review, found that of the 49 most-cited clinical research studies published between 1990 and 2003, more than 40% of them were later shown to be either totally wrong or significantly incorrect.
+
+=== Biological sciences ===
+In 2012, biotech firm Amgen was able to reproduce just six of 53 important studies in cancer research. Earlier, a group at Bayer, a drug company, successfully repeated only one fourth of 67 important papers. From 2000 to 2010, roughly 80,000 patients took part in clinical trials based on research that was later retracted because of mistakes or improprieties.
+
+=== Paleontology ===
+Nathan Myhrvold failed repeatedly to replicate the findings of several papers on dinosaur growth. Dinosaurs added a layer to their bones each year. Tyrannosaurus rex was thought to have increased in size by more than 700 kg a year, until Mhyrvold showed that this was a factor of 2 too large. In 4 of 12 papers he examined, the original data had been lost. In three, the statistics were correct, while three had serious errors that invalidated their conclusions. Two papers mistakenly relied on data from these three. He discovered that some of the paper's graphs did not reflect the data. In one case, he found that only four of nine points on the graph came from data cited in the paper.
+
+=== Major retractions ===
+Torcetrapib was originally hyped as a drug that could block a protein that converts HDL cholesterol into LDL with the potential to "redefine cardiovascular treatment". One clinical trial showed that the drug could increase HDL and decrease LDL. Two days after Pfizer announced its plans for the drug, it ended the Phase III clinical trial due to higher rates of chest pain and heart failure and a 60% increase in overall mortality. Pfizer had invested more than $1 billion in developing the drug.
+An in-depth review of the most highly cited biomarkers (whose presence are used to infer illness and measure treatment effects) claimed that 83% of supposed correlations became significantly weaker in subsequent studies. Homocysteine is an amino acid whose levels correlated with heart disease. However, a 2010 study showed that lowering homocysteine by nearly 30% had no effect on heart attack or stroke.
+
+=== Priming ===
+Priming studies claim that decisions can be influenced by apparently irrelevant events that a subject witnesses just before making a choice. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman alleges that much of it is poorly founded. Researchers have been unable to replicate some of the more widely cited examples. A paper in PLoS ONE reported that nine separate experiments could not reproduce a study purporting to show that thinking about a professor before taking an intelligence test leads to a higher score than imagining a football hooligan.  A further systematic replication involving 40 different labs around the world did not replicate the main finding. However, this latter systematic replication showed that participants who did not think there was a relation between thinking about a hooligan or a professor were significantly more susceptible to the priming manipulation.
+
+== Potential causes ==
+
+=== Competition ===
+In the 1950s, when academic research accelerated during the Cold War, the total number of scientists was a few hundred thousand. As of 2023, there are now a total estimated 8 million researchers worldwide. The number of research jobs has not matched this increase. Every year six new PhDs compete for every academic post. Replicating other researcher's results is not perceived to be valuable. The struggle to compete encourages exaggeration of findings and biased data selection. A recent survey found that one in three researchers knows of a colleague who has at least somewhat distorted their results.
+
+=== Publication bias ===
+Major journals reject in excess of 90% of submitted manuscripts and tend to favor the most dramatic claims. The statistical measures that researchers use to test their claims allow a fraction of false claims to appear valid. Invalid claims are more likely to be dramatic (because they are false.) Without replication, such errors are less likely to be caught.
+Conversely, failures to prove a hypothesis are rarely even offered for publication. "Negative results" now account for only 14% of published papers, down from 30% in 1990. Knowledge of what is not true is as important as of what is true.

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+---
+title: "Invalid science"
+chunk: 2/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_science"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:14.614270+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Peer review ===
+Peer review is the primary validation technique employed by scientific publications. However, a prominent medical journal tested the system and found major failings. It supplied research with induced errors and found that most reviewers failed to spot the mistakes, even after being told of the tests.
+A pseudonymous fabricated paper on the effects of a chemical derived from lichen on cancer cells was submitted to 304 journals for peer review. The paper was filled with errors of study design, analysis and interpretation. 157 lower-rated journals accepted it. Another study sent an article containing eight deliberate mistakes in study design, analysis and interpretation to more than 200 of the British Medical Journal's regular reviewers. On average, they reported fewer than two of the problems.
+Peer reviewers typically do not re-analyze data from scratch, checking only that the authors' analysis is properly conceived.
+
+=== Statistics ===
+
+==== Type I and type II errors ====
+Scientists divide errors into type I, incorrectly asserting the truth of a hypothesis (false positive) and type II, rejecting a correct hypothesis (false negative). Statistical checks assess the probability that data which seem to support a hypothesis come about simply by chance. If the probability is less than 5%, the evidence is rated "statistically significant". One definitional consequence is a type one error rate of one in 20.
+
+==== Statistical power ====
+In 2005 Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis showed that the idea that only one paper in 20 gives a false-positive result was incorrect. He claimed, "most published research findings are probably false." He found three categories of problems: insufficient "statistical power" (avoiding type II errors); the unlikeliness of the hypothesis; and publication bias favoring novel claims.
+A statistically powerful study identifies factors with only small effects on data. In general studies with more repetitions that run the experiment more times on more subjects have greater power. A power of 0.8 means that of ten true hypotheses tested, the effects of two are missed. Ioannidis found that in neuroscience the typical statistical power is 0.21; another study found that psychology studies average 0.35.
+Unlikeliness is a measure of the degree of surprise in a result. Scientists prefer surprising results, leading them to test hypotheses that are unlikely to very unlikely. Ioannidis claimed that in epidemiology, some one in ten hypotheses should be true. In exploratory disciplines like genomics, which rely on examining voluminous data about genes and proteins, only one in a thousand should prove correct.
+In a discipline in which 100 out of 1,000 hypotheses are true, studies with a power of 0.8 will find 80 and miss 20. Of the 900 incorrect hypotheses, 5% or 45 will be accepted because of type I errors. Adding the 45 false positives to the 80 true positives gives 125 positive results, or 36% specious. Dropping statistical power to 0.4, optimistic for many fields, would still produce 45 false positives but only 40 true positives, less than half.
+Negative results are more reliable. Statistical power of 0.8 produces 875 negative results of which only 20 are false, giving an accuracy of over 97%. Negative results however account for a minority of published results, varying by discipline. A study of 4,600 papers found that the proportion of published negative results dropped from 30% to 14% between 1990 and 2007.
+Subatomic physics sets an acceptable false-positive rate of one in 3.5m (known as the five-sigma standard). However, even this does not provide perfect protection. The problem invalidates some 3/4s of machine learning studies according to one review.
+
+==== Statistical significance ====
+Statistical significance is a measure for testing statistical correlation. It was invented by English mathematician Ronald Fisher in the 1920s. It defines a "significant" result as any data point that would be produced by chance less than 5% (or more stringently, 1%) of the time. A significant result is widely seen as an important indicator that the correlation is not random.
+While correlations track the relationship between truly independent measurements, such as smoking and cancer, they are much less effective when variables cannot be isolated, a common circumstance in biological systems. For example, statistics found a high correlation between lower back pain and abnormalities in spinal discs, although it was later discovered that serious abnormalities were present in two-thirds of pain-free patients.
+
+=== Minimum threshold publishers ===
+Journals such as PLoS One use a "minimal-threshold" standard, seeking to publish as much science as possible, rather than to pick out the best work. Their peer reviewers assess only whether a paper is methodologically sound. Almost half of their submissions are still rejected on that basis.
+
+=== Unpublished research ===
+Only 22% of the clinical trials financed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released summary results within one year of completion, even though the NIH requires it. Fewer than half published within 30 months; a third remained unpublished after 51 months. When other scientists rely on invalid research, they may waste time on lines of research that are themselves invalid. The failure to report failures means that researchers waste money and effort exploring blind alleys already investigated by other scientists.
+
+=== Fraud ===
+In 21 surveys of academics (mostly in the biomedical sciences but also in civil engineering, chemistry and economics) carried out between 1987 and 2008, 2% admitted fabricating data, but 28% claimed to know of colleagues who engaged in questionable research practices.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_science-2.md

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+---
+title: "Invalid science"
+chunk: 3/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_science"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:14.614270+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Lack of access to data and software ===
+Clinical trials are generally too costly to rerun. Access to trial data is the only practical approach to reassessment. A campaign to persuade pharmaceutical firms to make all trial data available won its first convert in February 2013 when GlaxoSmithKline became the first to agree.
+Software used in a trial is generally considered to be proprietary intellectual property and is not available to replicators, further complicating matters. Journals that insist on data-sharing tend not to do the same for software.
+Even well-written papers may not include sufficient detail and/or tacit knowledge (subtle skills and extemporisations not considered notable) for the replication to succeed. One cause of replication failure is insufficient control of the protocol, which can cause disputes between the original and replicating researchers.
+
+== Reform ==
+
+=== Statistics training ===
+Geneticists have begun more careful reviews, particularly of the use of statistical techniques. The effect was to stop a flood of specious results from genome sequencing.
+
+=== Protocol registration ===
+Registering research protocols in advance and monitoring them over the course of a study can prevent researchers from modifying the protocol midstream to highlight preferred results. Providing raw data for other researchers to inspect and test can also better hold researchers to account.
+
+=== Post-publication review ===
+Replacing peer review with post-publication evaluations can encourage researchers to think more about the long-term consequences of excessive or unsubstantiated claims. That system was adopted in physics and mathematics with good results.
+
+=== Replication ===
+Few researchers, especially junior workers, seek opportunities to replicate others' work, partly to protect relationships with senior researchers.
+Reproduction benefits from access to the original study's methods and data. More than half of 238 biomedical papers published in 84 journals failed to identify all the resources (such as chemical reagents) necessary to reproduce the results. In 2008 some 60% of researchers said they would share raw data; in 2013 just 45% do. Journals have begun to demand that at least some raw data be made available, although only 143 of 351 randomly selected papers covered by some data-sharing policy actually complied.
+The Reproducibility Initiative is a service allowing life scientists to pay to have their work validated by an independent lab. In October 2013 the initiative received funding to review 50 of the highest-impact cancer findings published between 2010 and 2012. Blog Syn is a website run by graduate students that is dedicated to reproducing chemical reactions reported in papers.
+In 2013 replication efforts received greater attention. Nature and related publications introduced an 18-point checklist for life science authors in May, in its effort to ensure that its published research can be reproduced. Expanded "methods" sections and all data were to be available online. The Centre for Open Science opened as an independent laboratory focused on replication. The journal Perspectives on Psychological Science announced a section devoted to replications. Another project announced plans to replicate 100 studies published in the first three months of 2008 in three leading psychology journals.
+Major funders, including the European Research Council, the US National Science Foundation and Research Councils UK have not changed their preference for new work over replications.
+
+== See also ==
+Metascience (research)
+Replication crisis
+Reproducibility Project
+Retraction Watch
+Séralini affair
+Statistical correlation
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+"Has science gone wrong?". The Economist. 2013-10-19. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
+O'Grady, Cathleen (2020-12-09). "Psychology's replication crisis inspires ecologists to push for more reliable research". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2020-12-16.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Oransky-0.md

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+---
+title: "Ivan Oransky"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Oransky"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:17.160913+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Ivan Oransky (born 1972) is an American physician and journalist. He co-founded the blog Retraction Watch in 2010 to document retractions in academic publishing and has since campaigned for greater transparency and accountability in research publishing. He is known for his advocacy of scientific integrity by tracking research misconduct and promoting institutional reforms. His opinions and statistics on scientific misconduct have been described in the media.
+
+
+== Education and career ==
+Oransky graduated cum laude with a B.A. in biology from Harvard College in 1994, where he served as executive editor of The Harvard Crimson. He obtained his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1998, where he served during his studies as editor-in-chief of "Pulse", the medical student section of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
+Oransky has held senior editorial positions including deputy editor of The Scientist (2004–2008), managing editor for online content at Scientific American (2008–2009), executive editor of Reuters Health (2009–2013), vice president and global editorial director of MedPage Today (2013–2017), and vice president of editorial at Medscape (2018–2020). From 2017 to 2021, he served as president of the Association of Health Care Journalists. He has also taught medical journalism at New York University since 2002 and taught at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism from 2007 to 2009.
+In August 2010, Oransky and Adam Marcus launched the blog Retraction Watch, a project of the Center for Scientific Integrity. It aggregates daily reports of article retractions, analyzes the causes of misconduct or error, and has become an influential resource for researchers, publishers, and librarians. By 2023, the site had catalogued over 30,000 retractions and prompted policy changes at major publishers. 
+Oransky serves as Distinguished Journalist in Residence at New York University's Arthur Carter Journalism Institute, where he teaches medical journalism in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. Since 2020, he has been editor-in-chief of The Transmitter, a neuroscience publication by the Simons Foundation.
+Oransky also serves as executive director of the Center for Scientific Integrity, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting transparency and integrity in science and scientific publishing. In this role, he oversees the Retraction Watch database, directs scholarship on scientific integrity, manages long-form investigative projects, and coordinates outreach to researchers, publishers, and policymakers to advance best practices in research accountability.
+
+
+== Awards ==
+Oransky has received recognition for his work. In 2015, he received the John P. McGovern Award for excellence in biomedical communication from the American Medical Writers Association. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in civil laws by The University of the South (Sewanee). In 2019, he received a commendation from the judges of the John Maddox Prize for his work at Retraction Watch promoting those who stand up for science in the face of hostility.
+
+
+== Impact of Retraction Watch ==
+Retraction Watch's 2024 year-end report shows it had a record 7.5 million pageviews, a 15% increase over its previous high, set in 2015, and its database—which is now part of Crossref—catalogues just under 55,000 retraction entries. Its investigative work and commentary were picked up by major news outlets, including the BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, Nature, NBC News, The New York Times, and USA Today, illustrating its broad influence on scientific and public discourse.
+
+
+== Publications and public talks ==
+In 2011, Oransky and Adam Marcus coauthored an article in Nature pointing out that the peer review process for scholarly publications continues long after the publication time. In 2014, Oransky coauthored an article in Nature that describes how several authors were caught reviewing their own papers.
+In 2012, Oransky gave a talk at TEDMED titled "Are we overmedicalized?", in which he discussed the epidemic of medical "preconditions" and warned against overtreatment in healthcare.
+In 2018, Oransky and Marcus profiled in Science magazine two researchers whose investigative work to find inconsistencies in published data has been instrumental in catalyzing retractions.
+In August 2023, Oransky and Marcus coauthored op-eds in Scientific American and The Guardian. In the wake of the resignation of Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Oransky and Marcus suggested that scientific misconduct is more common than is reported. They also assess that, despite recent scandals involving research misconduct, the academic community is uninterested in exposing wrongdoing and scientific errors, but that all members of the academic community are responsible for the delays and lack of action.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit-0.md

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+---
+title: "Least publishable unit"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:15.876367+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+In academic publishing, the least publishable unit (LPU), also smallest publishable unit (SPU), minimum publishable unit (MPU), loot, or publon, is the minimum amount of information that can be used to generate a publication in a peer-reviewed venue, such as a journal or a conference. (Maximum publishable unit and optimum publishable unit are also used.)  The term is often used as a joking, ironic, or derogatory reference to the strategy of artificially inflating the quantity of one's publications.
+Publication of the results of research is an essential part of science. The number of publications is often used to assess the work of a scientist and as a basis for distributing research funds. In order to achieve a high rank in such an assessment, there is a trend to split up research results into smaller parts that are published separately, thus inflating the number of publications. This process has been described as splitting the results into the smallest publishable units.
+"Salami publication", sometimes also referred to as "salami slicing" or "salami science", is a variant of the smallest-publishable-unit strategy.  In salami publishing, data gathered by one research project is separately reported (wholly or in part) in multiple end publications. Salami publishing, named by analogy with the thin slices made from a larger salami sausage, is generally considered questionable when not explicitly labeled, as it may lead to the same data being counted multiple times as apparently independent results in aggregate studies. Salami slicing is considered a type of scientific misconduct. At the same time, identifying "salami" can be ambiguous, and there are justifications for publishing multiple research perspectives in multiple scholarly disciplines to make knowledge accessible in different contexts.
+When data gathered in one research project are partially reported as if a single study, a problem of statistical significance can arise. Using a 5% significance threshold, if every tested null hypotheses is true, roughly 1 in 20 of them would be rejected by chance alone. Partially reported research projects must use a more stringent threshold when testing for statistical significance but often do not do this.
+There is no consensus among academics about whether people should seek to make their publications least publishable units, and it has long been resisted by some journal editors. Particularly for people just getting started in academic publication, writing a few small articles provides a way of getting used to how the system of peer review and professional publication works, and it does indeed help to boost publication count. But publishing too many LPUs is thought not to impress peers when it comes time to seek promotion beyond the assistant professor (or equivalent) level. Also, LPUs may not always be the most efficient way to pass on knowledge, because they break up ideas into small pieces, sometimes forcing people to look up many cross-references. Multiple salami slices also occupy more journal pages than a single synthetic article that contains the same information. On the other hand, a small piece of information is easily digestible, and the reader may not need more information than what is in the LPU.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Academic careerism
+H-index
+Impact factor
+Peer review
+Publication bias
+Publish or perish
+Publons
+Scientometrics
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+[1] – Video: The hazards of salami slicing

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_switching-0.md

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+---
+title: "Outcome switching"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_switching"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:18.338870+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Outcome switching is the practice of changing the primary or secondary outcomes of a clinical trial after its initiation. An outcome is the goal of the clinical trial, such as survival after five years for cancer treatment. Outcome switching can lead to bias and undermine the reliability of the trial, for instance when outcomes are switched after researchers already have access to trial data. That way, researchers can cherry pick an outcome which is statistically significant.
+
+
+== Problem ==
+Outcome switching can undermine the reliability of the trial, for instance when outcomes are switched when researchers already have access to the trial data. It can lead to bias in terms of benefits and harms. For example, when the findings using the original protocol were statistically insignificant, a study may cherry pick a new outcome measure that is statistically significant. If there are a large number of outcomes to choose from, it is likely at least one will show significant findings, assuming no correction is made for multiple testing. Incomplete or misleading reporting of outcomes is an example of unethical research practice.
+
+
+== Possible solutions ==
+Primary outcomes for clinical trials need to be defined upfront to prevent a biased selection of outcomes. Some medical journals require adherence to the CONSORT standards, which require authors to document any deviations from the initial study protocol and explain why changes were made. For instance, JAMA and the British Medical Journal require inclusion of the CONSORT checklist. When pre-specified outcomes are defined but unclear, researchers still have wriggle room to choose the most favourable option. A clear pre-defined outcome is therefore important to avoid outcome switching.
+Study authors may engage in outcome switching due to high pressures to publish. It is more difficult to publish negative results, especially in high-impact journals. Registered reports—a type of journal article where editors pledge to publish clinical trials irrespective of their results—may help combat this pressure to produce positive results. Initial peer review takes place based on the methodology and the reasoning behind the study.
+
+
+== Prevalence ==
+Despite problems with outcome switching, the practice is common. Changes in primary outcome metrics are present in nearly one in three studies. Outcome switching also occurs frequently in follow-up studies. In an analysis of oncology trials, outcome switching was more common in studies with a male first author, and in studies funded by non-profits. One study analysed outcome switching in five top medical journals, writing letters for each misreported trial outcome. Journal editors and clinical trial authors typically responded dismissively when concerns were raised, misrepresenting ethical standards and including ad hominem attacks.
+
+
+== Examples ==
+A drug against major depressive disorder, paroxetine, was marketed for children and teenagers for years, based on a flawed trial that involved outcome switching. The trial's protocol had described two primary and six secondary outcomes by which it would measure efficacy. The data showed that, according to those eight outcomes, paroxetine was no more effective than placebo. According to Melanie Newman, writing for the BMJ, "[t]he drug only produced a positive result when four new secondary outcome measures, which were introduced following the initial data analysis, were used instead. Fifteen other new secondary outcome measures failed to throw up positive results."
+
+
+== See also ==
+Data dredging
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing-0.md

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 1/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Predatory publishing, also known as write-only publishing  or deceptive publishing, is an exploitative and fraudulent academic publishing model in which journals or publishers prioritize their own financial or reputational gain over the advancement of scholarship. It is characterized by misleading or false information about editorial practices, a deviation from standard peer-review procedures, lack of transparency, and the use of aggressive or coercive solicitation tactics to attract authors. Predatory publishers often exploit the pressures on researchers to publish, undermining the integrity and credibility of scholarly communication.
+The phenomenon of "open-access predatory publishers" was first noticed by Jeffrey Beall around 2012, when he described "publishers that are ready to publish any article for payment". However, criticisms about the label "predatory" have been raised. A lengthy review of the controversy started by Beall appears in The Journal of Academic Librarianship.
+Predatory publishers are so regarded because scholars are tricked into publishing with them, although some authors may be aware that the journal is poor quality or even fraudulent but publish in them anyway. New scholars from developing countries are said to be especially at risk of being misled by predatory publishers. A 2022 report found that "nearly a quarter of the respondents from 112 countries, and across all disciplines and career stages, indicated that they had either published in a predatory journal, participated in a predatory conference, or did not know if they had. The majority of those who did so unknowingly cited a lack of awareness of predatory practices; whereas the majority of those who did so knowingly cited the need to advance their careers.
+According to one study, 60% of articles published in predatory journals receive no citations over the five-year period following publication.
+Actors seeking to maintain the scholarly ecosystem have sought to minimize the influence of predatory publishing through the use of blacklists such as Beall's List and Cabell's blacklist, as well as through whitelists such as the Directory of Open Access Journals. Nevertheless, identifying (and even providing a quantitative definition) of predatory journals remains difficult, because it is a spectrum rather than a binary phenomenon. In the same issue of a journal, it is possible to find articles which meet the highest criteria for scientific integrity, and articles that raise ethical concerns.
+
+== History ==
+In March 2008, Gunther Eysenbach, publisher of an early open-access journal, drew attention to what he called "black sheep among open-access publishers and journals" and highlighted in his blog publishers and journals which resorted to excessive spam to attract authors and editors, criticizing in particular Bentham Science Publishers, Dove Medical Press, and Libertas Academica. In July 2008, Richard Poynder's interview series brought attention to the practices of new publishers who were "better able to exploit the opportunities of the new environment". Doubts about honesty and scams in a subset of open-access journals continued to be raised in 2009.
+Concerns for spamming practices from these journals prompted leading open-access publishers to create the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association in 2008. In another early precedent, in 2009, the Improbable Research blog had found that Scientific Research Publishing's journals duplicated papers already published elsewhere; the case was subsequently reported in Nature. In 2010, Cornell University graduate student Phil Davis (editor of the Scholarly Kitchen blog) submitted a manuscript consisting of computer-generated nonsense (using SCIgen), which was accepted for a fee (but withdrawn by the author). Predatory publishers have been reported to hold submissions hostage, refusing to allow them to be withdrawn and thereby preventing submission in another journal.
+Predatory publishing does not refer to a homogeneous category of practices. The name itself was coined by American librarian Jeffrey Beall who created a list of "deceptive and fraudulent" Open Access (OA) publishers, which was used as reference until withdrawn in 2017. The term has been reused since for a new for-profit database by Cabell's International. On the one hand, Beall's list as well as Cabell's International database do include truly fraudulent and deceptive OA publishers that pretend to provide services (in particular quality peer review) which they do not implement, show fictive editorial boards and/or ISSN numbers, use dubious marketing and spamming techniques, or even hijacking known titles. On the other hand, they also list journals with subpar standards of peer review and linguistic correction.
+Studies using Beall's list, or his definitions, report an exponential growth in predatory journals since 2010. A 2020 study has found hundreds of scientists say they have reviewed papers for journals termed 'predatory' — although they might not know it. An analysis of the Publons has found that it hosts at least 6,000 records of reviews for more than 1,000 predatory journals. "The researchers who review most for these titles tend to be young, inexperienced and affiliated with institutions in low-income nations in Africa and the Middle East."
+The demonstration of unethical practices in the OA publishing industry has also attracted considerable media attention.
+
+=== Bohannon's experiment ===
+In 2013, John Bohannon, a staff writer for the journal Science and for popular science publications, tested the open-access system by submitting to a number of such journals a deeply flawed paper on the purported effect of a lichen constituent, and published the results in a paper called, "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?". About 60% of those journals, including journals of Elsevier, SAGE, Wolters Kluwer (through its subsidiary Medknow), and several universities, accepted the faked medical paper. PLOS ONE and Hindawi rejected it.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing-1.md

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 2/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== "Dr Fraud" experiment ===
+In 2015, four researchers created a fictitious sub-par scientist named Anna O. Szust (oszust is Polish for "fraudster"), and applied on her behalf for an editor position to 360 scholarly journals. Szust's qualifications were dismal for the role of an editor; she had never published a single article and had no editorial experience. The books and book chapters listed on her CV were made-up, as were the publishing houses that published the books.
+One-third of the journals to which Szust applied were sampled from Beall's List of predatory journals. Forty of these predatory journals accepted Szust as editor without any background vetting and often within days or even hours. By comparison, she received minimal to no positive response from the "control" journals which "must meet certain standards of quality, including ethical publishing practices". Among journals sampled from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), 8 of 120 accepted Szust. The DOAJ has since removed some of the affected journals in a 2016 purge. None of the 120 sampled journals listed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) offered Szust the position.
+The results of the experiment were published in Nature in March 2017, and widely presented in the press.
+
+=== SCIgen experiments ===
+SCIgen, a computer program that randomly generates academic computer science papers using context-free grammar, has generated papers that have been accepted by a number of predatory journals as well as predatory conferences.
+
+=== Federal Trade Commission vs. OMICS Group, Inc. ===
+On 25 August 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against the OMICS Group, iMedPub, Conference Series, and the individual Srinubabu Gedela, an Indian national who is president of the companies. In the lawsuit, the defendants are accused of "deceiving academics and researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars". The FTC was also responding to pressure to take action against predatory publishers. Attorneys for the OMICS Group published a response on their website, claiming "your FTC allegations are baseless. Further we understand that FTC working towards favoring some subscription based journals publishers who are earring  [sic] Billions of dollars rom  [sic] scientists literature", suggesting that corporations in the scientific publishing business were behind the allegations. In March 2019, the FTC won the suit in a summary judgement and was awarded $50,130,811 in damages and a broad injunction against OMICS practices. It is unlikely that the FTC will ever collect the award, since the rulings of US courts are not enforceable in India, and since OMICS does not have property in the US.
+
+== Characteristics ==
+Recognizing common characteristics of predatory publishers can help to avoid them. Complaints that are associated with predatory open-access publishing include:
+
+Accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review or quality control, including hoax and nonsensical papers.
+Notifying academics of article fees only after papers are accepted.
+Accepting papers which are outside of the declared scope of the journal.
+Aggressively campaigning for academics to submit articles or serve on editorial boards.
+Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission, and not allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.
+Appointing fake academics to editorial boards.
+Mimicking the name or web site style of more established journals.
+Making misleading claims about the publishing operation, such as providing false locations.
+Using ISSNs improperly.
+Citing fake or non-existent impact factors.
+Boasting about being "indexed" by academic social networking sites (like ResearchGate) and standard identifiers (like ISSNs and DOIs) as if they were prestigious or reputable bibliographic databases.
+Favoritism and self-promotion in peer review.
+Predatory publishers have also been compared to vanity presses.
+
+=== Beall's criteria ===
+
+In 2015, Jeffrey Beall used 26 criteria related to poor journal standards and practices, 9 related to journal editors and staff members, 7 related to ethics and integrity, 6 related to the publisher's business practices, and 6 'other' general criteria related to publishers. He also listed 26 additional practices, which were 'reflective of poor journal standards' which were not necessarily indicative of predatory behaviour.
+
+=== Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria ===
+In 2016, researchers Stefan Eriksson and Gert Helgesson identified 25 signs of predatory publishing. They warn that a journal will not necessarily be predatory if they meet one of the criteria, "but the more points on the list that apply to the journal at hand, the more sceptical you should be." The full list is quoted below:

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 3/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The publisher is not a member of any recognized professional organisation committed to best publishing practices (like COPE or EASE)
+The journal is not indexed in well-established electronic databases (like MEDLINE or Web of Science)
+The publisher claims to be a "leading publisher" even though it just got started
+The journal and the publisher are unfamiliar to you and all your colleagues
+The papers of the journal are of poor research quality, and may not be academic at all (for instance allowing for obvious pseudo-science)
+There are fundamental errors in the titles and abstracts, or frequent and repeated typographical or factual errors throughout the published papers
+The journal website is not professional
+The journal website does not present an editorial board or gives insufficient detail on names and affiliations
+The journal website does not reveal the journal's editorial office location or uses an incorrect address
+The publishing schedule is not clearly stated
+The journal title claims a national affiliation that does not match its location (such as "American Journal of ..." while being located on another continent) or includes "International" in its title while having a single-country editorial board
+The journal mimics another journal title or the website of said journal
+The journal provides an impact factor in spite of the fact that the journal is new (which means that the impact cannot yet be calculated)
+The journal claims an unrealistically high impact based on spurious alternative impact factors (such as 7 for a bioethics journal, which is far beyond the top notation)
+The journal website posts non-related or non-academic advertisements
+The publisher of the journal has released an overwhelmingly large suite of new journals at one occasion or during a very short period of time
+The editor in chief of the journal is editor in chief also for other journals with widely different focus
+The journal includes articles (very far) outside its stated scope
+The journal sends you an unsolicited invitation to submit an article for publication, while making it blatantly clear that the editor has absolutely no idea about your field of expertise
+Emails from the journal editor are written in poor language, include exaggerated flattering (everyone is a leading profile in the field), and make contradictory claims (such as "You have to respond within 48 h" while later on saying "You may submit your manuscript whenever you find convenient")
+The journal charges a submission or handling fee, instead of a publication fee (which means that you have to pay even if the paper is not accepted for publication)
+The types of submission/publication fees and what they amount to are not clearly stated on the journal's website
+The journal gives unrealistic promises regarding the speed of the peer review process (hinting that the journal's peer review process is minimal or non-existent)—or boasts an equally unrealistic track-record
+The journal does not describe copyright agreements clearly or demands the copyright of the paper while claiming to be an open-access journal
+The journal displays no strategies for how to handle misconduct, conflicts of interest, or secure the archiving of articles when no longer in operation
+
+=== Memon's criteria ===
+Scholar Aamir Raoof Memon proposed the following criteria of predatory publishing:
+
+The scope is too broad or inconsistent, e.g., it covers both biomedical and non-biomedical topics, irrespective of the title of the journal. They publish special issues on topics that are clearly outside the scope of the journal.
+They accept all submitted papers and pretend to have a peer review process.
+They are not affiliated with any reputable organization or university.
+The published papers are of poor quality because they have never been peer-reviewed or edited. In most of the cases, they publish a large number of papers per issue.
+They invite researchers to submit manuscripts with expertise in fields that are clearly outside the scope of the journal.
+They state false or misleading information about their indexing service(s) and/or are indexed in irrelevant agencies or not indexed in relevant databases.
+They falsify the information about their impact factors or similar metrics. Most of these journals claim to have an impact factor, despite being too new to have one.
+They state false or misleading information about its editorial board.
+They state false or misleading information about the costs involved in publishing with them or authors are surprised to discover hidden fees.
+They are not monitored by or member of a regional or international organization.
+They have no information about the strategy for handling misconduct (such as plagiarism, salami slicing, or a retraction policy).
+The website is either not up-to-date or lacks important information about submission requirements and manuscript processing and reviewing.
+The manuscripts are submitted through the email of the journal or directly on the journal's website.
+They do not usually mention the contact details. There is also false or misleading information about the location of the journal.
+
+=== Policies of leading scholar databases ===
+Many scientific abstract and citation databases implemented policies to identify and combat predatory journals. For example, Scopus automatically flags a journal that is an outlier in two consecutive years according to any of three criteria comparing it with peer journals in its subject field
+
+Substantially higher self-citation rate
+Substantially lower number of citation
+Substantially lower CiteScore
+Web of Science implemented somewhat similar criteria, although they do not specify any quantitative metrics. Also, Web of Science (unlike Scopus) checks for excessive citations of the works authored by the journal board members.
+As of summer 2024 SciFinder (and Chemical Abstract Service) do not have a publicly disclosed policy on predatory journals.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing-3.md

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 4/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Growth and structure ===
+A study in 2015 found that predatory journals rapidly increased their publication volumes from 53,000 in 2010 to an estimated 420,000 articles in 2014, published by around 8,000 active journals. Early on, publishers with more than 100 journals dominated the market, but since 2012 publishers in the 10–99 journal size category have captured the largest market share. As of 2022, almost one third of the 100 largest publishers (by journal count) could be deemed predatory. The regional distribution of both the publisher's country and authorship is highly skewed, with three-quarters of the authors from Asia or Africa. Authors paid an average fee of US $178 each for articles to be published rapidly without review, typically within two to three months of submission. As reported in 2019, some 5% of Italian researchers have published in predatory journals, with a third of those journals engaging in fraudulent editorial practices.
+
+== Causes and impact ==
+The root cause of exploitative practices is the author-facing article-processing charge (APC) business model, in which authors are charged to publish rather than to read. Such a model provides incentives for publishers to focus on the quantity of articles published, rather than their quality. APCs have gained increasing popularity in the last two decades as a business model for OA, due to the guaranteed revenue streams they offer, as well as a lack of competitive pricing within the OA market, which allows vendors full control over how much they choose to charge.
+Ultimately, quality control relies on good editorial policies and their enforcement, and the conflict between rigorous scholarship and profit can be successfully managed by selecting which articles are published purely based on (peer-reviewed) methodological quality. Most OA publishers ensure their quality by registering their titles in the Directory of Open Access Journals and complying with a standardised set of conditions.
+The majority of predatory OA publishers appear to be based in Asia and Africa, but in one study over half of authors publishing in them were found to be from "higher-income or upper-middle-income countries". It has been argued that authors who publish in predatory journals may do so unwittingly without actual unethical perspective, due to concerns that North American and European journals might be prejudiced against scholars from non-Western countries, high publication pressure or lack of research proficiency. Hence predatory publishing also questions the geopolitical and commercial context of scholarly knowledge production. Early career researchers are particularly vulnerable to predatory publishing, as they often face pressure to publish quickly to establish their academic careers. This, coupled with a lack of awareness of predatory practices, makes them more susceptible to exploitative publishers. Nigerian researchers, for example, publish in predatory journals due to the pressure to publish internationally while having little to no access to Western international journals, or due to the often higher APCs practiced by mainstream OA journals. More generally, the criteria adopted by high JIF journals, including the quality of the English language, the composition of the editorial board or the rigour of the peer review process itself tend to favour familiar content from the "centre" rather than the "periphery". It is thus important to distinguish between exploitative publishers and journals – whether OA or not – and legitimate OA initiatives with varying standards in digital publishing, but which may improve and disseminate epistemic contents.
+
+== Response ==
+
+=== Blacklists ===
+Lists of journals or publishers deemed either acceptable or unacceptable have been published. Beall's List was an example of a free blacklist, and Cabells' Predatory Reports is an example of a paid blacklist database. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommends against blindly trusting any list of fake or predatory journals, especially if they do not publish the criteria by which journals are evaluated. Some lists of purported predatory publishers have been criticized for being based on the authors' personal judgement, rather than objective evidence.
+Lists of acceptable sources, on the other hand, have been criticized as not being relevant to how academics evaluate journals.  Directory of Open Access Journals is an example of a free whitelist.  Other lists of pre-approved journals are available from large research funders.
+
+==== Beall's List ====

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing-4.md

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 5/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+University of Colorado Denver librarian and researcher Jeffrey Beall, who coined the term "predatory publishing", first published his list of predatory publishers in 2010. Beall's list of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers attempted to identify scholarly open-access publishers with questionable practices. In 2013, Nature reported that Beall's list and web site were "widely read by librarians, researchers, and open-access advocates, many of whom applaud his efforts to reveal shady publishing practices." Others have raised the objection that "(w)hether it's fair to classify all these journals and publishers as 'predatory' is an open question—several shades of gray may be distinguishable."
+Beall's analyses have been called sweeping generalizations with no supporting evidence, and he has also been criticized for being biased against open-access journals from less economically developed countries. A 2018 study has shown that Beall's criteria of "predatory" publishing were in no way limited to OA publishers and that, applying them to both OA and non-OA journals in the field of library and information science, even top tier non-OA journals could be qualified as predatory. Similarly, another study reported on the difficulties of demarcating predatory and non-predatory journals in biomedicine. One librarian wrote that Beall's list "attempts a binary division of this complex gold rush: the good and the bad. Yet many of the criteria used are either impossible to quantify..., or can be found to apply as often to established OA journals as to the new entrants in this area... Some of the criteria seem to make First World assumptions that aren't valid worldwide." Beall differed with these opinions and wrote a letter of rebuttal in mid-2015.
+Following the Who's Afraid of Peer Review? investigation, the DOAJ has tightened up its inclusion criteria, with the purpose of serving as a whitelist, very much like Beall's has been a blacklist. The investigation found that "the results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor quality control." However, the managing director of DOAJ, Lars Bjørnshauge, estimates that questionable publishing probably accounts for fewer than 1% of all author-pays, open-access papers, a proportion far lower than Beall's estimate of 5–10%. Instead of relying on blacklists, Bjørnshauge argues that open-access associations such as the DOAJ and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association should adopt more responsibility for policing publishers: they should lay out a set of criteria that publishers and journals must comply with to win a place on a 'white list' indicating that they are trustworthy.
+Beall has been threatened with a lawsuit by a Canadian publisher which appears on the list. He reports that he has been the subject of online harassment for his work on the subject. His list has been criticized for relying heavily on analysis of publishers' web sites, not engaging directly with publishers, and including newly founded but legitimate journals. Beall has responded to these complaints by posting the criteria he uses to generate the list, as well as instituting an anonymous three-person review body to which publishers can appeal to be removed from the list. For example, a 2010 re-evaluation resulted in some journals being removed from Beall's list.
+In 2013, the OMICS Publishing Group threatened to sue Beall for $1 billion for his "ridiculous, baseless, [and] impertinent" inclusion of them on his list, which "smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance". An unedited sentence from the letter read: "Let us at the outset warn you that this is a very perilous journey for you and you will be completely exposing yourself to serious legal implications including criminal cases lunched  [sic] against you in INDIA and USA." Beall responded that the letter was "poorly written and personally threatening" and expressed his opinion that the letter "is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS's editorial practices". OMICS' lawyers stated that damages were being pursued under section 66A of India's Information Technology Act, 2000, which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish "any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or to publish false information. The letter stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although a U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a "publicity stunt" that was meant to "intimidate". Section 66A has been criticised in an India Today editorial for its potential for misuse in "stifling political dissent, crushing speech and ... enabling bullying". Beall could have been sued for defamation, and would not have been able to fall back on truth as a final defense; under section 66A, the truth of any information is irrelevant if it is grossly offensive.
+In an unrelated case in 2015, Section 66A was struck down by the Supreme Court of India, which found that it had no proximate connection to public order, "arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech", and that the description of offences is "open-ended, undefined and vague." As such, it is not possible for the OMICS Group to proceed against Beall under section 66A, but it could mount a defamation case. Finally, in August 2016, OMICS was sued for "deceptive business practices related to journal publishing and scientific conferences" by the Federal Trade Commission (a US government agency), who won an initial court ruling in November 2017.
+Beall's list was used as an authoritative source by South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training in maintaining its list of accredited journals: articles published in those journals will determine funding levels for their authors; however, journals identified as predatory will be removed from this list. ProQuest is reviewing all journals on Beall's list, and has started removing them from the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
+In January 2017, Beall shut down his blog and removed all its content, citing pressure from his employer. Beall's supervisor wrote a response stating that he did not pressure Beall to discontinue his work, or threaten his employment; and had tried hard to support Beall's academic freedom.
+In 2017, Ramzi Hakami reported on his own successful attempt to get an intentionally poor paper accepted by a publisher on the list and referenced a resurrected version of Beall's list. This version includes Beall's original list and updates by an anonymous purported "postdoctoral researcher in one of the [E]uropean universities [who has] a hands-on experience with predatory journals."

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing-5.md

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 6/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+==== Cabells' Predatory Reports ====
+
+At the May 2017 meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, Cabell's International, a company that offers scholarly publishing analytics and other scholarly services, announced that it intended to launch a blacklist of predatory journals (not publishers) in June, and said that access would be by subscription only. The company had started work on its blacklist criteria in early 2016. In July 2017, both a black list and a white list were offered for subscription on their website.
+
+==== Other blacklists ====
+
+Since Beall's list closed, other list groups have started. These include Kscien's list, which used Beall's list as a starting point, updating it to add and remove publishers.
+In 2020, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China ordered Chinese Center of Scientometrics to launch a blacklist called Chinese Early Warning Journal List (EWJL). EWJL classifies journals into three grades: low, medium, or high risk, rather than two (predatory or not) like most other lists. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing criticism of this list as well.
+According to a 2020 systematic review of 93 lists, only three were assessed as evidence-based according to the authors' criteria.
+
+=== Science funders ===
+Multiple science funders have taken special measures against predatory publishing, especially in terms of national journal rankings.
+
+==== Poland ====
+On 18 September 2018, Zbigniew Błocki, the director of the National Science Centre, the largest agency that funds fundamental research in Poland, stated that if articles financed by NCN funds were published in journals not satisfying standards for peer review, then the grant numbers would have to be removed from the publications and funds would have to be returned to the NCN.
+
+==== Russia ====
+Both the Russian Science Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research require their grant recipients to publish only in the journals included into either Web of Science or Scopus databases. This policy aims at
+(1) preventing the researchers from falling into the traps of predatory publishers, without having the Foundations to issue their own lists of acceptable journals;
+(2) making sure that the results of their funded works are readily discovered by other people, as Web of Science and Scopus are subscribed to by most reputable institutions. However, in parallel with the withdrawal of Clarivate from Russia in 2022 and the pause in Elsevier services from 2022 onwards, the Web of Science and Scopus listings are no longer considered as essential by the Russian agencies.
+
+=== Other efforts ===

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+---
+title: "Predatory publishing"
+chunk: 7/7
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+More transparent peer review, such as open peer review and post-publication peer review, has been advocated to combat predatory journals. Others have argued instead that the discussion on predatory journals should not be turned "into a debate over the shortcomings of peer review—it is nothing of the sort. It is about fraud, deception, and irresponsibility..."
+In an effort to "set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones", principles of transparency and best practice have been identified and issued collectively by the Committee on Publication Ethics, the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, and the World Association of Medical Editors. Various journal review websites (crowd-sourced or expert-run) have been started, some focusing on the quality of the peer review process and extending to non-OA publications. A group of libraries and publishers launched an awareness campaign.
+A number of measures have been suggested to further combat predatory journals. Others have called on research institutions to improve the publication literacy notably among junior researchers in developing countries. Some organisations have also developed criteria in which predatory publishers could be spotted through providing tips.
+As Beall has ascribed predatory publishing to a consequence of gold open access (particularly its author-pays variant), one researcher has argued for platinum open access, where the absence of article processing charges removes the publisher's conflict of interest in accepting article submissions. More objective discriminating metrics have been proposed, such as a "predatory score" and positive and negative journal quality indicators. The International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE) have encouraged authors to consult subject-area expert-reviewed journal listings, such as the Directory of Nursing Journals, vetted by their organisation, and to make use of Jeffrey Beall's open-access list of predatory journals.
+Bioethicist Arthur Caplan has warned that predatory publishing, fabricated data, and academic plagiarism erodes public confidence in the medical profession, devalues legitimate science, and undermines public support for evidence-based policy.
+In 2015, Rick Anderson, associate dean in the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, challenged the term itself: "what do we mean when we say 'predatory,' and is that term even still useful?... This question has become relevant because of that common refrain heard among Beall's critics: that he only examines one kind of predation—the kind that naturally crops up in the context of author-pays OA." Anderson suggests that the term "predatory" be retired in the context of scholarly publishing. "It's a nice, attention-grabbing word, but I'm not sure it's helpfully descriptive... it generates more heat than light." A 2017 article in The New York Times suggests that a significant number of academics are "eager" to publish their work in these journals, making the relationship more a "new and ugly symbiosis" than a case of scholars being exploited by "predators".
+Similarly, a study published in January 2018 found that "Scholars in the developing world felt that reputable Western journals might be prejudiced against them and sometimes felt more comfortable publishing in journals from the developing world. Other scholars were unaware of the reputation of the journals in which they published and would not have selected them had they known. However, some scholars said they would still have published in the same journals if their institution recognised them. The pressure to 'publish or perish' was another factor influencing many scholars' decisions to publish in these fast-turnaround journals. In some cases, researchers did not have adequate guidance and felt they lacked the knowledge of research to submit to a more reputable journal."
+In May 2018, the University Grants Commission in India removed 4,305 dubious journals from a list of publications used for evaluating academic performance.
+To further define and distinguish predatory journals, Leonhard Dobusch and Maximilian Heimstädt in 2019 proposed a tripartite classification of Open Access journals with below-average peer review quality. Based on their procedures, there would be 1) "aspirant" 2) "junk" and 3) "fake" journals. While aspirant journals are science-oriented despite their below-average peer review (e.g. student-run journals), junk and fake journals are predominantly or exclusively profit-oriented. Junk and fake Open Access journals have superficial or no peer review procedures, despite their claims of being peer-reviewed.
+In April 2019, 43 participants from 10 countries met in Ottawa, Canada to formulate a consensus definition: "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices." Adequacy of peer review was not included in the definition because this factor was deemed too subjective to evaluate. Critics of this definition argued that excluding the quality of peer review from the definition "could strengthen rather than weaken" predatory journals.
+In March 2022, the InterAcademy Partnership published a report, Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences, with a series of recommendations. This study emphasized, that predatory publishing practices is not a binary (good or bad) phenomenon, but rather a spectrum. They proposed the following classification: 
+
+a) hijacked journals, which mimic existing reputable journals;
+b) journals which re-publish papers from legitimate journals (see OMICS);
+c) journals which deceive their potential authors by "giving false or misleading information about their publishing charges, the services they provide (like indexing, peer-review, or having an impact factor), where the publisher is based, or the identity of the owner, editor or members of the editorial board."
+d) low-quality journals, which are characterised by poor cumulative criteria (such as disregarding negative reviews of manuscripts and publishing articles outside the declared journal's scope), without an apparent deceitful intent (see MDPI and Frontiers Media).
+Some journals can be simultaneously classified into two or more categories.
+
+== See also ==
+List of scholarly publishing stings
+Author mill
+Conflicts of interest in academic publishing (covers publishers' COIs)
+Content farm
+Diploma mill
+Elsevier § Fake journals
+Essay mill
+Hijacked journal
+Journalology
+Mega journal
+Open-access journal
+Peer review failures
+Predatory conference
+Pseudo-scholarship
+Research Integrity Risk Index
+Center for Promoting Ideas
+
+== Explanatory notes ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== Further reading ==
+Spears, Tom (14 June 2017). "Critic of 'predatory' publishing returns with scathing article". Ottawa Citizen. p. A3. Retrieved 26 December 2019 – via Newspapers.com. Jeffrey Beall is back after he went silent and website disappeared around January
+Discussion document: Predatory Publishing (Report). Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 1 November 2019. doi:10.24318/cope.2019.3.6.
+InterAcademy Partnership (2022). Combatting predatory academic journals and conferences: report. [Washington, DC]. ISBN 978-1-7330379-3-8. OCLC 1304485975.{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
+
+== External links ==
+
+Think. Check. Submit.
+"Predatory journals: No definition, No defence. (2019). Nature. "Leading scholars and publishers from ten countries have agreed [on] a definition of predatory publishing that can protect scholarship."
+AMWA – EMWA – ISMPP Joint Position statement