Authorship For Sale. Papers For Sale. Everything For Sale.

Academic publishing fraud in China has come up here before, but Science has an in-depth look at the problem. And a big problem it is: "There are some authors who don't have much use for their papers after they're published, and they can be transferred to you," a sales agent for a company called Wanfang Huizhi told a Science reporter posing as a scientist. Wanfang Huizhi, the agent explained, acts as an intermediary between researchers with forthcoming papers in good journals and scientists needing to snag publications. The company would sell the title of co–first author on the cancer paper for 90,000 yuan ($14,800). Adding two names—co–first author and co–corresponding author—would run $26,300, with a deposit due upon acceptance and the rest on publication. A purported sales document from Wanfang Huizhi obtained by Science touts the convenience of this kind of arrangement: "You only need to pay attention to your academic research. The heavy labor can be left to us. Our service can help you make progress in your academic path!" For anyone who cares about science and research, this is revolting. If you care a lot more about climbing that slippery ladder up to a lucrative position, though, it might be just the thing, right? There are all sorts of people ready to help you realize your dreams, too: The options include not just paying for an author's slot on a paper written by other scientists but also self-plagiarizing by translating a paper already published in Chine...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: The Dark Side Source Type: blogs