Slashdot Mirror
Publishers Withdraw More Than 120 Fake Papers
bmahersciwriter writes "Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has cataloged computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013. Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer, which is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), based in New York. Both publishers, which were privately informed by Labbé, say that they are now removing the papers."
Looks like journal trolling is really easy.
For artificial intelligence to actually say something
Well, it's great to hear that the algorithms are getting so good! That's awesome progress in AI.
Too bad our AIs are apparently now smarter than our journal reviewers/editors. Well, at least in the specific domain of the jobs these people have probably been doing every day for years....
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Fun fact - Joseph Fourier University is named after the dude that came up with the Fourier transform, something that many of us use everyday in our work.
Maybe I should stop right there in case someone gets a bright fucking idea.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Assuming he hasn't already...
Which is what this seems like. The process of science is not going to jeopardize itself just because some board kids want to vandalize the walls and get attention. If we change the process not to improve it, but just to defend against the Justin Beibers of the world, what good would that do?
As it is there are safeguards in place. As much as people deride the cost of publishing, this reduces the incentive of hooligans to publish purely fake papers. Peer review, which does not protect against purposeful fraudulent papers, does keep a reign on the problem. Then there is simple principle that a single paper is just that, a single paper. It is one data point, and even if referenced widely, is in no way fact.
This also makes me recall the 'confusing' health debate. Like what to eat, what not to eat, etc. The problem is that many people read a popular media report based on a single piece of research and think it is true. This misconception indicates the problem with science education in America. That one result is meaningful. That our basic principles of science were developed fully in one paper, with no background, and no adjustment as more data was taken. For instance, relativity was based on at least hundred years of research. Einstein pretty much observed single discrepancy in the magnetic/electrical field and formulated a correction.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I recently did some literature research into ontology technology, and was shocked by how many papers were pot-boilers that disguised trivial ideas with inflated language. These were papers that had absolutely no discernible academic value other than to pad a resume, and collect but a smattering of citations, mostly from similar papers. In comparison the seminal papers, the ones that get tons of citations for years to come are robust, thought-provoking and well-written.
Granted the well-written part probably has something to do with attracting future citations, but I think the trivial nature of the useless papers probably has something to do with their obscure style.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Labbé emphasizes that the nonsense computer science papers all appeared in subscription offerings. In his view, there is little evidence that open-access publishers — which charge fees to publish manuscripts — necessarily have less stringent peer review than subscription publishers.
Considering how many complaints there are about low-quality open-access journals, this suggests that that isn't nearly as much of an issue as some people are claiming.
When is Dice going to withdraw all those fake job listings?
These stories of journals being trolled are on the increase. I wonder how long until the first fake paper is published about fake papers being published.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's called SCIgen.
As someone who reviews papers (by humans) for conferences and regularly says "reject this crap" (politely, and with reasons) only to see the paper accepted, I'm not too surprised.
Most of these computer generated papers have valuable ideas we need to consider.
Statistics indicate that 1 in 24.3 of these computer generated papers have uniquely valuable scientific advancements. But the real-world ratio is about 1:99.7 --- the 3 sigma rule.
If these computer-generated papers are exceeding the productivity of the actual papers by a 4 to 1 margin, a big opportunity is being missed and it doesn't matter why.
A true case of an unintended result exceed the effectiveness of your average deliberate result. Short version: a 4% rate actually exceeds the real-world discovery rate. This should not be ignored, coincidence or not.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
At first he was randomly generating papers! Then articles!
Now he's randomly generating Slashdot comments!
Turn the program OFF! NAO!! You've been caught RED-HANDED!
You thought you could get away with it and dodge detection by using an English sounding name, but it didn't work and you are SO BUSTED.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Next step must be to make computer generated papers that gets citations... :)
The real problem is that universities demand publication of your paper in a "renown" magazine. These magazines know you need to get published and thus are willing to publish anything, as long as you pay the hefty fee required. These magazines have no incentive to check for the quality of the submissions, since relatively very few people actually read the magazines and skip the publications that don't interest them. Give your publication an uninteresting title and people will most likely skip it.
If Universities would set up a peer reviewed web site system themselves and allow their students to publish there free of charge, these magazines have no other way to survive than to pay for good submissions. Students wins and science wins in that case. Even better, getting copies of your paper to interested people does no longer require you to purchase expensive prints of the magazine, since *they* hold the copyright and you can't even publish anywhere else. The few magazine publishers that won't be able to get a third home in the Caymans and won't be able to get a bigger yacht might complain, but they brought it on themselves with their greed.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
What a shame they used a computer to create fake papers! My god, one-hundred and twenty! Incidentally, did you know eating bananas prevents cancer? Yes! I read it in a study. Thank god people are producing thousands upon thousands of real studies!
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Remember: this is the same peer review that many of the scientific results that government policies are justified with are based on.
Both science and peer review are a good thing, but you can only start trusting scientific results after decades have passed and after they have been replicated numerous times.
To be fair, there's a big difference between conference proceedings and journal articles - for one thing, conference papers are normally not peer reviewed. The idea of a conference proceeding is to report preliminary work or summarize work that's been published elsewhere.
The proceeding isn't supposed to be a substitute for the real article, and thus is held to lower standards. That's why academic CV's (like mine) don't even bother to list conference proceedings (only the tenure reivew board will get to see them :-)).
-JS
Many years ago I used the linked CS Paper Generator to make a handful of fake papers and I posted them on my website. When I did a Google search on my name I found wesbites that linked to my PDF documents on my website but I also found a few some unscrupulous people have taken my papers and are hosting them on docstoc.com so he can collect fees for the downloads.
Ha! Good luck to people paying to read my nonsense papers. Try getting your money back.
This one guy has collected (stolen) over 1,700 documents from around the Internet:
http://www.docstoc.com/profile/oym20829
which a branch of computational physics. They just would not work. However I dont have the time nor possibly the expertise to patrol the myraid of other field out there. 20 years from now most are in the dustbin.