A Facebook group is offering the opportunity to be an author of a paper, if you pay a fee. In this article we present what we have found, but there are still a lot of questions that need answering.
In this article we look at the Facebook group, from where the post came, an example post that has been made in this group and a paper that was published which, we believe, is the paper that is being referred to in the post. We also provide some of our own comments.
The Facebook group
The post that was passed to us came from a Facebook group called Journals Indexed in Scopus/Thomson Reuters (Wos) (see Figure 1).
If you follow the above link, you will be taken to the group. You have to be a member to see their posts. We note that the group has over 40,000 members, which suggests that it is quite easy to join so, if you want to see the type of posts that are made in this group, it should be easy to join.
The Facebook post
We were recently made aware of the Facebook post shown in Figure 2, that was posted in the group that we mention above (see Figure 1). The link for the post is https://www.facebook.com/groups/1997039280603383/posts/2646346535672651/, but you have be a member of the group to view the post.
Figure 2 shows a call for collaboration. It’s not totally clear what is being offered, but it looks like that there are three papers that are being written and there are positions available in the author list for anybody that is interested. We assume that there would need to be a monetary exchange at some point.
Figure 3 shows some of the comments on this post.
What strikes us about these comments is that the original poster quickly wants to get you to use DM (Direct Message) rather than post any further information in the public forum.
Not just on this post, but others that also appear in this group, if you ask what journal the paper will appear in, or ask anything about costs, you are asked to go to DM, or email. We have not found any posts where this type of information is provided.
We can only assume that this is not to show too much information, not to put people off with any financial information or to start a meaningful dialogue. Perhaps it is also aimed at collecting information that can be used to contact people later when other opportunities present themselves.
The resultant paper
We have searched for some of the paper titles that are being advertised in this Facebook group. Most of them do not return a search result, at least not one that is conclusive. Perhaps this is because the title of the papers is purposefully mangled to stop people searching. Of course, it could be that the paper is never published.
However, some do return results that are interesting.
If you look at Figure 1, you can see that we have highlighted the first paper that is being offered as a collaborative opportunity. If you search for this paper, you can find a paper has been published with a very similar name in the Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies. You can access the paper (“CALLing the process of writing”: Facebook as language support learning tool in enhancing the EFL learners’ online writing performance) here.
You’ll see that the paper that was advertised in Figure 1 was titled:
Facebook as language support learning tool in enhancing the EFL learners’ online writing performance
The paper that was actually published was titled:
“CALLing the process of writing”: Facebook as language support learning tool in enhancing the EFL learners’ online writing performance
… apart from the additional words at that start of the title, they are identical. This suggests (to us anyway) that the paper that was advertised on the Facebook group was duly published.
Any other evidence?
Apart from the paper title, what else can we we say about the paper paper referred to in Figure 1, that suggests it is the paper that was subsequently published (see Figure 4).
Timeline
You’ll see from Figure 2 that the Facebook post was made on 16 October 2021. Figure 4 shows that the paper was accepted on the 12 November 2021. We would suggest that this timeline works for the Facebook post and the resultant paper, if they are referring to the same paper.
It is also interesting to note that the paper was submitted 07 September 2021, suggesting that the paper was submitted, then additional authors were sought and these added when a revision of the paper was submitted. At least that is our interpretation. It would be very interesting to see the audit trail of the review process for this paper but I suspect that we would not be able (allowed) to access this. But, if the editorial staff of the journal are reading this, we would value their comments on this interpretation. Let us know at admin@predatory-publishing.com.
Scopus Quartile
You’ll note from Figure 1 that the journal is stated as being a Scopus Q2 journal. If you look up the Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, on Scopus, it appears in three categories, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language and Education.
Looking at the journals in the Language and Linguistics category (see Figure 5), we that there are 1,075 journals in this category, with the Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies being ranked 499, thus placing it in the second quartile (Q2).
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
Another check we did was look at the journal’s web site. This had an image that says that the SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) is 0.17 and that the journal is in the second quartile (Q2). This is shown on the right hand side of Figure 6. We can validate this by looking at Scopus (see left hand side of Figure 6). This also shows that the SJR of the journal is 0.17, which matches with the information on the web site.
Summary
I think we have enough evidence to show that the paper that was “advertised” in Figure 1 is the same paper that was published a month or so later. If you disagree, let us know (admin@predatory-publishing.com).
Our Comments
Given what we have said above, we make the following comments/observations:
- We note (see Figure 1) that the Facebook post is seeking author ranks for positions 5, 6, 7 and 8. In the paper that was published there were five authors listed. Can we conclude that the fifth author paid to be on the paper and that they failed to attract authors for positions 6, 7 and 8?
In fact, we cannot make that conclusion, without further evidence. It would also be unfair on the fifth author who has not had the right of reply (see comment 4). Therefore, unless we have more information, I do not think we can draw any firm conclusions. - If this paper was submitted on 07 September 2021 (see Figure 4) and the Facebook post was posted on 16 October 2021, it would suggest that there was no authors in position 5, 6, 7 and 8 (noting what we said above about not wanting to be unfair to the fifth author).
If we assume (and it is a big assumption) that the paper was submitted with only four authors, what was the process to add another author at a later stage? - Given what we have said above, it would be very interesting to see the full review process of this paper. That is the various submissions and the reviewers comments. We do not expect the journal to release this information but it could be a way to show that the Facebook post was not successful in what it was trying to do.
If the journal wants to let us have sight of this information, we invite them to contact us at admin@predatory-publishing.com. We will respect the confidentiality of the information that is provided. - It is quite possible that the journal, and the authors of the paper, are totally oblivious to this Facebook post and what it may suggest. It would be interesting to hear from the editors and or the authors (admin@predatory-publishing.com).
Times Higher Education article
Whilst researching this article, we can across a very interesting, and recent, article that was published by Jack Grove, in the Times Higher Education. The article is very relevant to this article.
The article, “Academic fraud factories are booming, warns plagiarism sleuth” can be seen here and is based on the work of Anna Abalkina.
Let us know your experiences
If you have had experience with this type of publishing, we would like to hear from you. Please contact us at admin@predatory-publishing.com.