Posted on 04/09/2013 5:37:04 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
..... Those who agreed to appear were later charged a hefty fee for the privilege, and pretty much anyone who paid got a spot on the podium that could be used to pad a résumé.
“I think we were duped,” one of the scientists wrote in an e-mail to the Entomological Society.
Those scientists had stumbled into a parallel world of pseudo-academia, complete with prestigiously titled conferences and journals that sponsor them. Many of the journals and meetings have names that are nearly identical to those of established, well-known publications and events.
Steven Goodman, a dean and professor of medicine at Stanford and the editor of the journal Clinical Trials, which has its own imitators, called this phenomenon “the dark side of open access,” the movement to make scholarly publications freely available.
The number of these journals and conferences has exploded in recent years as scientific publishing has shifted from a traditional business model for professional societies and organizations built almost entirely on subscription revenues to open access, which relies on authors or their backers to pay for the publication of papers online, where anyone can read them.
Open access got its start about a decade ago and quickly won widespread acclaim with the advent of well-regarded, peer-reviewed journals like those published by the Public Library of Science, known as PLoS. Such articles were listed in databases like PubMed, which is maintained by the National Library of Medicine, and selected for their quality.
But some researchers are now raising the alarm about what they see as the proliferation of online journals that will print seemingly anything for a fee. They warn that nonexperts doing online research will have trouble distinguishing credible research from junk.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Most people don’t know the journal universe,” Dr. Goodman said. “They will not know from a journal’s title if it is for real or not.”
Researchers also say that universities are facing new challenges in assessing the résumés of academics. Are the publications they list in highly competitive journals or ones masquerading as such? And some academics themselves say they have found it difficult to disentangle themselves from these journals once they mistakenly agree to serve on their editorial boards.
Another unintended consequences of 'good intention' wrt open access.
Not only fake résumés are at stake here, we have all kinds of fake studies begging for public money for "scientific research". For example in this article, Everything Causes Cancer!, health beat reporters from the media need to have more professionalism. (Quote) "When it comes to cancer, the media should be focused on providing meaningful and critical coverage, not using the grave disease as a tool to attract anxious readers." (Unquote)
Maybe it will creat a whole industry for debunking the pseudo-academics.
That ship sailed long ago, even within the so-called "respectable" scientific community.
Precisely! Its safest to assume that its all junk, until proven otherwise. I’m guessing that a good measure of a works credibility is to look at who funded it and whether it serves to bolster an agenda that is popular in academia.
Or whether it impacts an issue that is a hot current political/social agenda.
Real bad news for the scientific community.
(Sigh) Seemed life was so much easier/simpler ‘back in the days’.
Scientists? Bah! The wheat looks so much like the chaff that figuring out who is a scam artist and who is a researcher isn't worth my time.
Global Warming
Evolution
HIV
I don't think there's a lot of science there. But there sure is money.
Agreed. Way too much of today's research is little more than a game of "chase the grant money" by focusing on the political hot-topic of the day, complete with preordained conclusions.
Too much of the medical literature is false, either by sloppiness, over interpretation, or outright fraud. Most major pharma companies are now quite reticent about believing published findings without vetting them in house first. There's a reason for this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.