[open-science] [Open-access] Fake Cancer study published in 157 Open Access Journals

Thu Oct 10 08:52:59 UTC 2013

Hey all,

Just to say that I've started to draft a document from OKF. I'll share this
later today as I'm just nipping out for a meeting.

Best,
Michelle

On 10 October 2013 10:22, Jenny Molloy <jcmcoppice12 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All
>
> I agree time is of the essence and have set up a googledoc, however I have
> a morning in a molecular lab to look forward to and won't be able to
> populate it until lunchtime - please feel free to plough ahead with
> suggesting 300 words!
>
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kgFHnG-HhstNbDE2AOX5LXNkqSOTyefy1LRpB2Rc328/edit#
>
> No matter what we think of this journalistic piece (as Francois points
> out, it was never intended as a scientific study and appears in the News
> section of Science) the message is reaching lots of people from high
> profile media outlets that open access means poor quality research rather
> than that some journals do poor peer review and APC business models are a
> gift to fraudulent publishers, so I think we should make some sort of
> statement with other organisations who are interested.
>
> I think the latter point raises some really interesting questions for a
> social scientist to tackle with a well designed study, as Carl points out
> in his earlier email:
> "What is the greater potential concern here: that well-intentioned
> authors are being deceived, or that demand from dishonest authors has
> created a large market for dishonest publishers (possibly in an attempt to
> deceive employers who assess their output by volume?)"
>
> Please pass this email onto other people who may be interested/tweet the
> link to the document. Even better get them to sign up to the mailing list -
> now accessible from the front page of the website for those who find
> mailman pages a bit old school:
> http://science.okfn.org/.
>
> Jenny
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 5:13 PM, Luke Winslow <lawinslow at wisc.edu> wrote:
>
>>  Klaus. I now believe you are just trolling. Thanks for reminding me that
>> the best way to deal with internet trolls is to not engage them.
>>
>>
>> But it would be wonderful to see an alliance of reputable institutions
>> like OKF putting together a concise, well-formulated rebuttal, and
>> broadcasting it well beyond the confines of the OA community. Starting with
>> the Letters column of The Economist.
>>
>> I completely agree. The Economist is widely read. But more importantly,
>> the letter section is widely read and respected as well (MHO). A letter
>> there from people with a bigger reputation than me would be the first step.
>> Or perhaps a letter signed by the open knowledge foundation itself? (I have
>> the feeling they would not accept a letter not signed by an individual).
>>
>> Quick survey says letters are ~300 words or less. Not sure what their
>> criteria is, but 300 seems to be about the longest letter (maybe 350) based
>> on a brief (non-scientific!) survey of a<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21586511-our-capital-freeze-index-utah-chinese-banks-montessori-schools-biofuels-brazilian-foreign>
>> few<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21587182-biodiversity-software-jobs-unemployment>
>> issues<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21586273-syria-chemical-weapons-high-speed-rail-azerbaijan-italy-burials>
>> .
>>
>> I think it would be important to get it in by yesterday. The economist is
>> weekly and they often run criticisms of the past issue in the very next
>> issue. Best to get it in while it is fresh on people's minds.
>>
>> What's next? Think Science would accept some sort of follow-up? Any other
>> journals or major outlets?
>>
>> -Luke
>>
>>
>> On 2013-10-08 10:15, Klaus Graf wrote:
>>
>>  The same nonsense you have written before.
>>
>> If I write an article on Tibet I do not have the duty to take the rest of
>> the world as control group. "Really bad" is only what OA advocates do when
>> ignoring uncomfortable truths.
>>
>>  Klaus Graf
>>
>>
>> 2013/10/8 Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com>
>>
>>> There were indeed VERY serious flaws, and I'm a bit surprised that
>>> anyone would claim not to be able to see them. I enumerated some of
>>> them here:
>>>
>>> http://svpow.com/2013/10/07/anti-tutorial-how-to-design-and-execute-a-really-bad-study/
>>>
>>> On 8 October 2013 15:12, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > On 7 October 2013 19:33, Klaus Graf <klausgraf at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> See also
>>> >> http://archivalia.tumblr.com/tagged/openaccess
>>> >>
>>> >> I still cannot see serious flaws
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I'm not going to claim serious flaws in the methodology, or even in
>>> what the
>>> > article itself states. However, to accept it as an expose of OA alone
>>> is a
>>> > serious flaw.
>>> >
>>> > a) There is no comparative data for submissions to closed access
>>> journals
>>> > b) No attempt was made (or at least documented to have been made) to
>>> obtain
>>> > waivers for the APCs
>>> >
>>> > On that second point, the article was submitted with African
>>> affiliations,
>>> > which would have been cause to grant a waiver for any of the OA
>>> publishers
>>> > that operate such policies for lower income countries.
>>> >
>>> > Either, and preferably both, of these would have given indication as to
>>> > whether the acceptances were driven by predatory desires to reap the
>>> APCs.
>>> > As it is, the Bohannon article is missing (at least) two critical
>>> pieces of
>>> > evidence, which means it is only telling half a story, at best.
>>> >
>>> > Besides, this is ultimately a largely self-correcting problem. Open
>>> science
>>> > can be discredited, journals will get reputations for being routinely
>>> > discredited (Negative Impact Factors, if you will) and no serious
>>> author
>>> > with real results is going to want to publish in journals with a bad
>>> > reputation. (And for any new authors that are not so well informed,
>>> there
>>> > should be appropriate support structures from their funders,
>>> colleagues and
>>> > institutions to avoid the problems).
>>> >
>>> > If predatory publishers remain, and a small number of authors can
>>> afford to
>>> > pay them to publish what they know to be crap, so be it. The only
>>> danger of
>>> > that is bogus studies being published in order to sell useless
>>> products as
>>> > being scientifically proven - but that's a consumer issue, not a
>>> > research/science one.
>>> >
>>> > This would be a much more serious issue if credible journals that
>>> command a
>>> > good reputation were accepting nonsense to harvest APCs. But this study
>>> > actually showed that they did not. And whilst anyone could make a
>>> mistake,
>>> > the respected journals aren't going to wave through poor articles -
>>> because
>>> > they would very quickly lose their reputation (and hence value, and
>>> > revenue).
>>> >
>>> > G
>>> >
>>>   > _______________________________________________
>>> > open-science mailing list
>>> > open-science at lists.okfn.org
>>> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>>> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/open-science
>>> >
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
*

Michelle Brook

Community coordinator, Open Education | @MLBrook<https://twitter.com/MLBrook>

The Open Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>

Empowering through Open Knowledge

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