Fed up with the easy acceptance of articles submitted to the Bosnian journal Medical Archives, a faculty member at the University of Prishtina (Universiteti i Prishtinës) decided to carry out a sting operation to expose the journal’s lack of peer review and rapid publication. It didn’t go exactly as planned.
The researcher, Associate Professor Hatixhe Latifi-Pupovci, translated an old article she had written in Albanian into English and submitted it to Medical Archives, one of three journals of Avicena Publisher, a publisher on my list of questionable publishers. Its owner, editor-in-chief (and frequent contributor to its journals) is Dr. Izet Maši?.
The plan was to test whether the journal would conduct an honest peer review or just quickly accept and publish the paper after the author fee was paid.
Dr Latifi-Pupovci tells the story:
“Since tens of my colleagues from the University of Prishtina were getting academic promotions based on publications in the three journals edited by Dr. Maši?, I decided to test the credibility of one on them (“Medical Archives”) by submitting a humble paper which was already published in Prishtina, Kosovo, and, in my opinion, would not qualify for publication in an international journal. I submitted the paper on 22 February 2014 and, on 14 April 2014 received a reminder to pay the publication fee of 250 EUR, which I never did.”
She received the email above asking her to sign a copyright transfer form and to send in proof that she had paid the author fee. She never paid the fee, nor did she intend to.
Dr. Hatixhe Latifi-Pupovci recounts what happened next:
“Several days later I found out the article was published on 10 April 2014, four days before the reminder was sent out. On 27 April I sent a message to a 3000 member Yahoo Group of professors and students of the Faculty of Medicine in my home university, explaining the whole situation and making clear that I renounce the paper and I am not going to use it for my academic promotion.”
The message is in Albanian, but those interested in the topic can easily use online tools to translate it.
But then the editor was tipped off to the sting operation. In May, 2014, he sent this rejection letter to the author:
At this point, two years ago, Dr. Latifi-Pupovci thought the story was over. But recently, she learned that Maši? had formally “retracted” the sting article.
In an August, 2014 editorial in Medical Archives, Maši? announces a “retraction” of Dr. Latifi-Pupovci’s article, falsely accusing her of plagiarism. He wrote,
“First case of plagiarism this year was happed in February issue when author prof. Hatixhe Latifi-Popovci tried to publish her paper in our journal with title “Association Between Autoantibodies Against Thyroid Stimulating Hormone Receptor and Thyroid Diseases”. After several and anonymous suggestions from Prishtina that this article was already published in the journal “Praxis Medica” in Albanian language and identical in content we received, it was decided to retract paper from our side. Also, Dean of the Faculty of medicine in Prishtina and Rector of University of Prishtina were informed about author’s unethical behavior.”
So Maši?’s journal quickly accepted and briefly published an article submitted as part of a sting operation, but he turned it around into an accusation of plagiarism.
Dr. Latifi-Pupovci sums it up nicely:
“Researchers and general public should be aware that Avicena Publishers is a typical example of a company which does not follow the industry standards and exists to provide easy, fast and cheap publishing for the authors. It is unethical and dishonest to operate such a business and make false accusations against those who tell people what you are really doing.”
By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access
Comments:
MC says:
May 3, 2016 at 9:10 AM
Would have made more sense to send a un-published, fake article to the journal, not something that had already been published elsewhere. I get why the editor calls the authors’ behavior unethical- technically, it is, so the point the author was trying to make would have been stronger if they sent in something that was scigen-like
DWeb says:
May 3, 2016 at 9:39 AM
plus sci-gen articles are more amusing 🙂
MC says:
May 3, 2016 at 6:36 PM
I felt like the post did not really point this out, but instead sided too heavily with the author, especially by stating “Maši? announces a ‘retraction’ of Dr. Latifi-Pupovci’s article, falsely accusing her of plagiarism.”
Didn’t the author, in fact, plagiarize themselves by submitting an already-published manuscript to another journal?
The editor is a weirdo, no doubt, and this journal is completely useless by anyone’s standards, but wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense to send a fake article?
tekija says:
May 4, 2016 at 11:16 AM
Agree. Bad choice that made the retraction legitimate.
Klaas van Dijk says:
May 3, 2016 at 4:26 PM
Publisher Avicena is a member of COPE. Copy/pasted from http://publicationethics.org/taxonomy/term/562
“Showing 3 results. Order by: Title
Acta Informatica Medica, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Professor Izet Masic
Materia Socio Medica, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Professor Izet Masic
Medica Archives, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Professor Izet Masic”
tekija says:
May 4, 2016 at 11:14 AM
A man of many talents – I lost the count how many professorships dr Masic has held (so far).
Jill says:
May 4, 2016 at 8:39 PM
I agree that it would have been better to use a fake article. However, if I read the acceptance letter correctly, one was to have paid the publication fee on submission, not at acceptance. And from that, these journals get also get the authors to sign copyright transfer to the journal?! That strikes me as theft of intellectual property.
