We recently stated our intention to use the BBC quiz show as a way of presenting material in order to provide a way to inform/educate people about predatory publishing.
This article relates the first set of posts we did. We would really be interested in any feedback you have, as well as any advice/ideas you have.
The idea
For our first post, we decided to align it with when Only Connect was broadcast. The idea being that there might be people following the Only Connect Twitter feed at this time.
The program we followed was broadcast on 6 February at 20:00 (to 20:30) – UK time. We timed out posts at 20:00, 20:08, 20:16, 20:24 and 20:30. We made five posts to mirror the four clues that contestants get, followed by the answer (at 20:30).
We are also aware that Only Connect has (at the time of writing) 33.3K followers and the show’s presenter (Victoria Coren Mitchell) has 685.3K followers and, although they may not directly interact with us, it could help us reach a wider audience if we tag these two accounts.
The quiz
The following images are the clues we posted, starting at 20:00, through till 20:24. You can see the Twitter post by clicking on the link below each image and you can enlarge the image by clicking on it.
The challenge for you is to try and work out the relationship between these four images, or just keep reading :-).
The connection
The four images show:
- A scientific journal, called Scientific Journal of Research & Reviews
- A picture of a bird flying
- An image of a monkey at a typewriter
- A picture of Big Bird from Sesame Street
So, what does this refer to? It is actually a spoof paper that was submitted, accepted and published, although it has since been removed.
The paper was accepted by Scientific Journal of Research & Reviews (thus the first image).
The paper was entitled “What’s the Deal with Birds” (thus the second image).
For us, the highlight of this paper were the acknowledgements, which read “We thank Big Bird from Sesame Street for comments on the manuscript. Several trained monkeys transcribed videos” (thus the final two images).
If you want to see the paper, we have made it available here and we have spoken more about this spoof paper, along with a few others in one of our previous articles.
Our final tweet
You might also want to see the final tweet we sent (on 6 February at 20:30). Here it is.
Final comments
The serious part of this article is to highlight that peer review was non-existent in this case. It is not just the acknowledgments, take a look at the abstract of the paper. It will raise a smile but the serious message is that, the paper cannot have been through peer review.
Scientific Journal of Research & Reviews is still an active journal. Its current issue is Volume 3, Issue 4 (as at 9 Feb 2023). The journal started publishing in October 2018. At the time of writing they had published 61 articles.
The journal is published by Iris Publishers. At the time of writing they are publishing 53 journals. This publisher is one that we plan to take a look at sometime in the future.