In order to whitewash her academic history, Liang Ying of Nanjing University "silently" removed all published Chinese papers.
However, this is not the most "malicious" because-
We recently found that the organizer of an academic conference had also "silently" removed 1258 manuscripts! Yes, you are not mistaken.
In a meeting, 1,258 manuscripts were withdrawn.
This is the "2011 International Conference on E-commerce and E-government" jointly sponsored by IEEE and Shanghai University in 2011.
Many people are familiar with IEEE. Its Chinese name is "Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers", which is an international association of electronic technology and information science engineers and is considered as "the largest non-profit professional technical society in the world at present".
However, we are going to talk about the above academic conference later. Because-
IEEE quietly withdrew, far more than the papers of this meeting!
In the past ten years, IEEE, as a conference organizer, has withdrawn more than 7,000 papers and abstracts of its own conferences, almost all of which were written by China.
The reporter dug up the retraction of conference papers by IEEE from 2008 to 2017 from the retraction observation database, which scared skr people.
A total of 7,263 papers were withdrawn, of which 6,866 were from China.
Emmmm…… … Who can tell me what happened in 2010 and 2011? !
As a result, the reporter dug out the papers from China in the withdrawn manuscripts in 2010 and 2011 from the massive database information, and vomited blood to sort out the following chart:
The number of conference papers/abstracts withdrawn by IEEE in 2010 from China (data source: TheRetractionWatchDatabase).
The question is, what was this peak in September 2010?
Continue searching
From September 1 ST to September 6 th, everything was calm and no draft was withdrawn. But this is just the calm before the storm.
No, on September 7th, IEEE withdrew 455 conference papers and abstracts, including-
In 20103, 348 articles of rdinternational conference on computerscience and information technology were published.
In the next few days, it was withdrawn—
129 articles of International Conference on Management and Service Science in 2010.
In 2010, there were 289 articles in The2NdConference OnenvironmentScience and Information Application Technology.
Please pay attention to these three meetings, because their names will appear later.
Look at the situation in 2011:
The number of conference papers/abstracts withdrawn by IEEE in 2011 from China (data source: TheRetractionWatchDatabase).
The question comes again. What was this peak in June 2011?
The reporter then searched, and found the conference mentioned at the beginning of this article-"2011 International Conference One-Business-Government" (2011 International Conference on Electronic Commerce and E-Government), and the peak in June completely "relied" on this conference.
According to ten years of data retrieval and analysis, the reporter compiled a list of meetings with more than 100 articles withdrawn:
See, the three meetings that attracted everyone’s attention before are all on the list, ranking fifth, ninth and eleventh.
Through this table and the previous retrieval, we draw the following conclusions:
1. Among more than 7,000 conference manuscripts withdrawn by IEEE in the past 10 years, these 12 conferences accounted for "half of the country".
2. The meetings with serious retraction were concentrated in 2010 and 2011.
3. The venues of 12 international conferences are all in China.
Of course, we haven’t finished here, and we have also "deeply" these meetings.
For example, the first meeting, which is mentioned at the beginning of the article, has such a brief introduction in "Baidu Entry".
Screenshot source: Baidu Encyclopedia
Pay attention to the words in the red box, "EI full-text core retrieval was completed within two months after the meeting, which shocked the academic circles and won the praise and praise of the majority of authors."
The second-ranked meeting doesn’t seem to be "praised and praised by the majority of authors" like the first-ranked meeting:
Screenshot source: Baidu Encyclopedia
The fifth conference introduced itself on the official conference blog:
Screenshot source: official blog of ESIAT2010 conference
It seems that whether it can be included in EI and how high the retrieval rate is are matters that contributors and conference organizers are very concerned about!
Of course, we also pay attention to the repeated name of the conference organizer in the table-International Association for Computer Science and Information Technology:
Screenshot source: IACSIT official website.
For many contributors from China, the last sentence in the introduction-"The papers received at our meeting will be published in famous journals and submitted to major indexing service platforms for retrieval" may be very attractive.
After the shock and sigh, we continue to uphold the rational tradition-
Why are all Chinese’s papers withdrawn? Why is this happening? With these questions, we interviewed some experts.
During the interview, most experts asked for anonymity.
After refusing to be interviewed, an expert told a bunch of heartfelt truths-
However, despite this, we have heard many people’s voices, including many experts who dare to face the problem directly and answer questions with their real names.
Question 1: Why are conference papers/abstracts prone to problems?
Anonymous expert a:
"Compared with journals, the publication time of conference papers will be faster, and the review and revision will be less rigorous. Conference papers are usually only reviewed in the first instance, and some good conferences will have two trials, but journals generally have two or even three trials, and the papers in journals will be more rigorous and fewer.
There are special editors in charge of the periodical review process, so the quality is generally controllable, and many periodicals are time-tested and mature. The meeting is generally aimed at some hot issues. As soon as some people propose it, they will hold a meeting, and then the meeting will set up an organizational Committee to review the manuscript through the procedural Committee. If the program committee members are not so strict, quality problems will easily occur. "
Question 2: Why do most of the papers of the withdrawn conference come from China? What does this phenomenon mean?
Professor Li Daguang, Department of Science Communication, Chinese Academy of Sciences:
"The problem of international conferences in China: Now the conferences have a bad trend, and they are getting bigger and bigger. By this, I mean the large scale, strong publicity and great effect. The bigger the conference, the lower its value. I call it’ legal academic corruption’, which costs a lot but has almost no high-value academic achievements."
Zhang Baiping, Researcher, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences:
"Some so-called publications are fooling Chinese, and they are useless except to prove that Chinese is a fool. All the publications that can be published in large numbers are bad publications. "
Anonymous expert b:
"This phenomenon shows: quick success and instant benefit (administration)+too much evaluation (administration)+insufficient groups with high academic appreciation = counting evaluation = pursuing quantity = scientific research is untrustworthy."
Anonymous expert c:
"Publishing articles should be a natural description of scientific research, not a demand for benefits. When it becomes a benefit, it is not surprising that there are moths."
Question 3: IEEE told the media that a committee composed of employees and volunteer experts has been set up to serve as the "gatekeeper" of conference materials and provide additional quality control. What should China do next?
Feng Qi, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science, China Academy of Sciences:
"If the country is talking about scientific research integrity, it should clear those who like to make fakes out of the scientific research team, because people who make fakes are not suitable for living in the field of science and technology, and the act of making fakes violates the most basic and most natural principle that people engaged in scientific research should abide by-seeking truth from facts."
Anonymous expert a:
"There were many conferences aimed at retrieving the number of papers in the first decade. In recent years, with the improvement of everyone’s level and the strengthening of academic norms, such meetings have been much less.
Generally speaking, judging the influence of the conference depends on the citation rate, admission rate and citation of the paper. The better the citation of papers, the lower the admission rate, indicating that the quality of this conference is relatively high. However, the number of papers admitted is not an important indicator of this conference. On the contrary, there are many high-quality and influential conferences with few papers.
It should be noted that if the manuscript is withdrawn only because there is no strict peer review process, this is different from the nature of bad academic behaviors involving plagiarism and fraud. "
Li Daguang:
"According to the response of IEEE, it is certain that these papers do not meet the requirements of international journals. This may not be the same as plagiarism of journal papers.
When attending international conferences or publishing foreign periodicals, Chinese didn’t quite understand their specifications and requirements for several reasons. First, he didn’t know much about foreign conference papers and periodicals. Second, students or researchers receive less relevant training. Thirdly, the content of culture and policy is mixed in the paper, and the typical Chinese expression will not meet the requirements of international conference submission.
When it comes to plagiarism, in fact, most researchers are unintentional. They think they are quoting other people’s content, but they make mistakes because they don’t understand the relevant citation norms. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they need to strengthen the training of students and researchers in academic norms and accept the training of paper expression in the international context, which can be trained by old editors, scientists of academic journals or scientific communicators who are familiar with this field. "
In May this year, the general offices of the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Further Strengthening the Construction of Scientific Research Integrity", proposing to establish a lifelong investigation system, and to investigate and deal with acts that seriously violate the requirements of scientific research integrity in accordance with the law.
In addition, on October 23, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other five departments also issued a document to carry out a special campaign to clean up "only papers, only professional titles, only academic qualifications, only awards".
How will our relevant departments deal with so many situations discovered this time? We will continue to pay attention to …
Science report address:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/what-massive-database-retracted-papers-reveals-about-science-publishing-s-death-penalty
Database address:
http://retractiondatabase.org/
further reading
Editor-in-Chief of springer Nature Group: The withdrawal of papers is part of the scientific process.
"I think retraction is part of the scientific process. Many problematic papers can only be discovered after publication, and at this time, the phenomenon of retraction will inevitably occur. "
-Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature
Text | Zhao Guangli
This article is reproduced from China Science News’ WeChat WeChat official account "Science Network" (ID: sciencenet-CAS). The original text was first published on November 4, 2018. The original text has been deleted, which does not represent the view of the think tank.
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On the withdrawal of forged papers: the phenomenon of withdrawal is "inevitable"
Q: Would you like to comment on the recent incident of "withdrawing manuscripts" at Harvard University? Under what circumstances will Nature request to withdraw its manuscript? What measures will academic publications take to avoid similar things to the maximum extent?
Philip Campbell: I won’t comment on the specific events, but I can really comment on the retraction.
For Nature, as soon as we find something incorrect in the manuscript, we will withdraw it-I think this is part of the scientific process.
In fact, as far as retraction is concerned, only 50% may be due to academic misconduct, but many of them need to be retracted for very honest reasons.
We will be happy to comply with these retraction, and we are glad to be able to withdraw the manuscript for those cases that have been retracted due to dishonest reasons.
Because for scientific journals, we should correct these records instead of focusing on finding out who to blame in related events.
You also asked what we can do to reduce this phenomenon? It should be said that this is very difficult.
Because in fact, many other scientists will try to repeat his experiment only after the publication of the paper. When they can’t get the results of the corresponding experiment and realize that the experiment can’t be copied, we may find that there may be problems with the paper at that time.
For journalists, editors or peer reviewers, they can only trust what the author describes in their own papers.
In this case, most of the time, only after the first publication, in the later development of events, I realized that there might be problems at that time, that is to say, this phenomenon will inevitably occur.
I think there may be a way to reduce the probability of this happening, that is, our journal will continue to insist that authors describe and disclose their work in their papers comprehensively, because if authors can do so, it will greatly reduce their chances of hiding fraud or cheating.
Q: Speaking of peer review, it seems that there are few peer reviewers in developing countries.
Philip Campbell: We will find more peer reviewers by attending academic conferences, visiting laboratories and listening to academic reports. We should see these scientists with our own eyes and communicate with them at the same time. Moreover, we should hear others mention these scholars and scientists.
There are more and more papers published now, and once we find new peer reviewers, we will seek their help.
As for the number of peer reviewers, there is indeed some imbalance between different countries, and we are committed to changing this situation, but we can only do what we can now.
Q: In September, Nature published a report, saying that thousands of authors publish a paper every five days, many of them from China. What’s your comment on this?
Philip Campbell: I saw the relevant report. I don’t know how they did it. We do try our best to identify the authors-those who have contributed to the paper.
The situation you mentioned may be that some people just added a name to other people’s papers. We are trying our best to avoid this situation.
Now I don’t know if the person mentioned in this report has the author of Nature, but this matter really needs to be studied and investigated, and those universities involved should also take measures to investigate.
Q: How to avoid similar academic misconduct or fraud?
Philip Campbell: For academic misconduct, we can only take immediate action whenever we find or receive relevant information.
(For academic misconduct) Sometimes reviewers will find problems before publication, and sometimes someone will find problems after publication.
But in any case, we will contact the author or the author’s unit to see what happened. If academic misconduct really happens, we will take action, for example, asking to withdraw the manuscript in serious cases.
2 Talk about innovation and entrepreneurship: Young scientists should do whatever they want.
Q: Many young scientists are more willing to focus on the publication of papers than on the transformation of scientific research results. What do you think of this phenomenon? For young scientists, should we balance the relationship between publishing academic papers and transforming scientific research results?
Philip Campbell: I want to say that young scientists should do whatever they want.
Some young scientists want to know how the world works and improve their knowledge in this field. These scientists have received great support, including support from donors and the scientific community. There are also some young scientists who are willing to help develop products or start companies to achieve the goal of making our world healthier, fairer and more environmentally sustainable, but they have not received much support.
I think the academic system should be adjusted now to provide support for all kinds of young scientists. Some young scientists are not fully respected for doing such work, and this situation needs to be changed.
I encourage researchers to do the research they want to do and take their brains with them-this passion is very important, whether he or she wants to solve a fundamental problem or a specific practical problem, if he or she is good enough, he or she can do it as long as he or she has passion.
However, as a member of academic circles, young scientists really need to publish papers and communicate their research results with the world in the form of papers.
Q: China has ranked second in the world in terms of scientific research input and output, but we still feel that there is a big gap compared with the most advanced level in many fields. How do you evaluate the present situation and level of scientific research in China?
Philip Campbell: I have been dealing with China for 20 years. I have visited China many times, and I have been deeply impressed by the China government’s investment in science and technology for many times.
I think all efforts will pay off, even in the most competitive scientific fields.
If you look at the articles published in the academic journal Nature, there may be only four or five papers from scientists in China a year 10 years ago, but now it even reaches hundreds a year.
Therefore, I have no reason not to think that this situation will continue to develop, and the level of scientific research in China will continue to expand and deepen.
3 Talking about the memory of the editor-in-chief of Nature: full of expectations for the discovery of extraterrestrial life
Q: What do you think is the biggest change you have brought after leading Nature magazine for 22 years?
Philip Campbell: I think the biggest change is that Nature, as a magazine, has greatly expanded and increased in scale.
When I first became the editor-in-chief of Nature, its content as a magazine was very limited, and most of it focused on scientific policy. Now, Nature has a lot of other contents, including opinions and news reports.
It is also very important for readers to realize that Nature is also a magazine, at least as heavy as its weight as a periodical.
Moreover, we are now allowed to promote these changes within Nature, such as promoting more reliable science, promoting better management and treating young scientists. These are some of the work we are doing now.
In addition, as an academic journal, Nature has now published more fields than in the past, and has also published fields that have not been published before, such as organic chemistry, social science, high-energy physics and so on.
In this sense, this part of Nature as an academic journal has also expanded.
Q: In the post of editor-in-chief of Nature for 22 years, what are the most exciting breakthroughs in natural science in the near future? What is the latest Internet product that makes you feel attractive?
Philip Campbell: I said that Nature is both an academic journal and a magazine. I have special memories in both aspects.
Dolly, the cloned sheep, is a good example. At that time, I had just been the editor-in-chief of Nature for a short time, and this incident surprised us very much at that time.
Of course, for researchers, they don’t think so But everything that happened afterwards, including all kinds of debates around cloned sheep, surprised everyone.
I was also very excited about the "Human Genome Project" since then, including the Flores discovered later in Indonesia.
Many unexpected things happened, which also left a very deep impression on me.
As for what excites me recently, I think it is the discovery of extraterrestrial planets.
Before, we only knew the planet Earth, but we didn’t know the planets orbiting other stars, but now we know that there are billions and billions of such planets.
I especially hope to find life on such an extraterrestrial planet in the future.
Perhaps, they are not intelligent beings who can communicate with us directly, but at least they may be able to find some signs in the atmosphere of a planet, indicating that there may be some microorganisms or other types of life on this planet, which will make me very excited.
In the field of Internet, I think Wikipedia is a particularly great achievement, which has a great influence on me.
In all fields of science, Wikipedia provides people with a huge treasure house of knowledge, which is not only for me personally, but also for everyone. It makes knowledge very extensive and accessible.
Chief producer: Chloe Wang
Producer: Yu Xia
Editor: Dai Lili Li Yibo
Editor: Xie Fang
Text | Ni Sijie Han Yangmei
This article is reproduced from China Science Journal’s WeChat WeChat official account "Science Network" (ID: sciencenet-CAS). The original article was first published on October 28, 2018, and the original title was "A meeting removed 1258 papers! Withdraw the manuscript, there are more malicious than Nanda Liang Ying! ",does not represent the view of looking at the think tank.
(Original title "A meeting removed 1258 papers! Withdraw the manuscript, there are more malicious than Nanda Liang Ying! 》）
