و حالا، داوری تقلبی!

لورا لندر مدیر مجله‌های ای سی ام، در ایمیلی به مدیران مسوُل مجله‌های خود فاش ساخت که اخیراً تعدادی از نویسندگان، هنگام ارسال مقاله‌های خود، افراد تقلبی‌ای را به‌عنوان داور پیشنهاد می‌کردند و ایمیل‌هایی که برای  این داوران ارایه داده‌اند  به خودشان فورواد می‌شد. در نتیجه خودشان  به سرعت مقاله‌های خود را  «مثبت» داوری می‌کردند. این کار  تا کنون موجب پذیرفته شدن حدود ۳۰ مقاله شده‌ است‌. سرعت پاسخ دهی این داوران تقلبی (گاهی تا ۲ روز پس از ارسال نامه‌)  موجب کشف این تقلب شد. آخرین موردهای  این تخلف را  ظاهرا دو ایرانی متهم به انجام آن هستند  که نامشان در این ایمیل آمده (و در این بلاگ با *** مشخص شده‌اند) و مقاله‌های آن‌ها پس گرفته شده اند.

اصل ایمیل را بخوانید. --- با تشکر از دکتر مهدی برادران طهوری

Dear ACM Editors-in-Chief,

It is useful to have reviewer suggestions, especially in cases where the
topic may be obscure and outside the domain of the current set of AEs.
Some manuscript submission systems can provide such suggestions.
However, please note that it is still important to research such
recommendations thoroughly.  It may also be best to avoid using more
than one of the reviewers suggested by an author, as noted recently in
an article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/Fake-Peer-Reviews-the-Latest/134784/

As you may not have subscription access, here are excerpts:

*Fake Peer Reviews, the Latest Form of Scientific Fraud, Fool Journals*

By Josh Fischman

Scientists appear to have figured out a new way to avoid any bad
prepublication reviews that dissuade journals from publishing their
articles: Write positive reviews themselves, under other people's names.

In incidents involving four scientists—the latest case coming to light
two weeks ago—journal editors say authors got to critique their own
papers by suggesting reviewers with contact e-mails that actually went
to themselves.

The glowing endorsements got the work into Experimental Parasitology,
Pharmaceutical Biology, and several other journals. Fake reviews even
got a pair of mathematics articles into journals published by Elsevier,
the academic publishing giant, which has a system in place intended to
thwart such misconduct. The frauds have produced retractions of about 30
papers to date. ...

Blame lies with those journals, [Irene Hames, a member of the Committee
on Publication Ethics] said, that allow authors to nominate their own
reviewers and don't check credentials and contacts. ...

Claudiu Supuran, editor in chief of the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and
Medicinal Chemistry, became suspicious that one of his authors was
engaged in "do-it-yourself" peer review in 2010. Hyung-In Moon, now an
assistant professor at Dong-A University, in Busan, South Korea, had
submitted a manuscript along with the names of several potential
reviewers. Mr. Supuran, then an associate editor at the journal, duly
sent the article out for review and became suspicious when good reviews
came back in one or two days. "Reviewers never respond that quickly," he
said. ...

The following year, Mr. Moon was still submitting manuscripts and Mr.
Supuran, promoted to the top editing job, decided to look harder at the
latest one. Mr. Moon "listed names of reviewers and affiliations, like
the University of Florida, but he gave a Gmail or Yahoo e-mail address
as the contact," Mr. Supuran said. "And once again the positive reviews
came back within two days. But this time I called some contacts at the
University of Florida, and they said they never heard of Moon's supposed
reviewers." ...

Elsevier ... has a database of reviewers. Even if an author suggests a
reviewer, editors are supposed to use contact e-mails from that
database... the company discovered a vulnerability in the system and has
corrected it.

But not, apparently, before that vulnerability may have been exploited
to the advantage of two mathematicians—A****** ******, of the University
of ******, and E********* *******, of ***** University, both in Iran.
Retraction notices for three of their papers, published this year in the
Journal of Geometry and Physics and the Journal of Mathematical Analysis
and Application, appeared in mid-September.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Best,

Laura
*Laura A. Lander*
Journals Manager
Association for Computing Machinery
2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701
New York, NY 10121
tel: [phone]