tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.comments2024-03-07T01:35:59.629-05:00Gunther Eysenbach's random research rantsGunther Eysenbach MD MPHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03418681005679727986noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-77770848165744602212016-07-07T10:06:36.450-04:002016-07-07T10:06:36.450-04:00Teixeira da Silva, J.A., Al-Khatib, A. (2016) Ques...Teixeira da Silva, J.A., Al-Khatib, A. (2016) Questioning the ethics of John Bohannon’s hoaxes and stings in the context of science publishing. KOME 4(1): 84-88. <br />http://komejournal.com/files/KOME_TdaSAceil.pdf<br />DOI: 10.17646/KOME.2016.16<br />https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/4F333EB3ED485609E7B7DEEA3D9093<br />https://www.pubpeer.com/publications/E902004AA49A4636D480087B2A6BE8<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-70927439959259409512013-10-09T09:36:53.813-04:002013-10-09T09:36:53.813-04:00Thanks for sharing your perspective. This "st...Thanks for sharing your perspective. This "sting" looks kind of pranky, identifying a problem and then overattributing it. Another thing that should be pointed out is that Bohannon hasn't proven much by simply getting a paper published in a no-review or weak-review bogus journal. It does NOT mean that the OA system allows bad science to permeate. What allows bad science to permeate is when other scientists start citing bad work. So garbage papers in bogus journals don't threaten the system, and Bohannon is wrong to advance this premise. He'd have to see if anyone actually cited his spoof, and built new hypotheses from it. Just getting the spoof paper published is very early the larger scientific process.<br /><br />Given the huge profits at for-profit "real" publishers (Springer, etc), all built upon publicly-outsourced overhead costs, OA needs to be part of the future of science.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-37058987530123105512013-10-08T12:57:06.015-04:002013-10-08T12:57:06.015-04:00Interesting to read this blog post and the subsequ...Interesting to read this blog post and the subsequent discussion again after 5 years - it anticipated a lot of the things we see today, including the formation of OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association) and the quality problems with low-quality OA publishers, the extend of which has been quantified by the recent Bohannon Science article (http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.ca/2013/10/unscientific-spoof-paper-accepted-by.html). I also notice that the publishers we were concerned about 5 years ago (Bentham, Dove, ..) are still players today and published the Bohannon spoof paper with superficial or no peer-review. Gunther Eysenbach MD MPHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03418681005679727986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-23728528434807404782013-10-08T08:02:33.674-04:002013-10-08T08:02:33.674-04:00@Karen: Different people may read the emails diffe...@Karen: Different people may read the emails differently but as an editor I found it strange to get 3 emails from the authors pushing for a decision (after I already explained that there is a submission fee) and dangling the money in front of my nose ("Our university grant gives us access to the money to pay publication fees only upon proof of acceptance of our work. Once our paper passes peer review and is acceptable for publication, then we get access to the money.") - I felt it it's basically like saying, "come on, accept it already, then we pay you". <br /><br />@all<br />In any case, I give credit to John Bohannon for correcting the data, as well as answering my questions, even though some issues remain unanswered - it is still not clear why he tried to submit an article when it was clear we have a submission fee, and the ethical issue is up for debate. I still think editors should at least have received an email from Science with an apology and the disclosure that this paper was a hoax.Gunther Eysenbach MD MPHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03418681005679727986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-86259276457264256172013-10-08T08:00:26.465-04:002013-10-08T08:00:26.465-04:00I would like to point out that the Journal of Inte...I would like to point out that the Journal of International Medical Research (JIMR), published by SAGE, did not accept the article submitted to it for publication as it stands. It was accepted subject to further editorial queries being answered to the satisfaction of the journal. This is clearly laid out in the correspondence with the author.<br /> <br />JIMR is a long-established, respected journal that has been publishing quality research for 41 years. It is JCR-listed and its rejection rate was 62.5% in 2012. Professor Malcolm Lader Ph.D., M.D., F.R.C. Psych., F. Med. Sci., Emeritus Professor, King’s College London is the Editor of the journal and has been for the last 25 years. It has a world class Editorial Board.<br /> <br />JIMR has operated a two-stage review process, specific to this journal. First, the editor performs an initial review of a submission and then, once a paper has passed this initial review stage, it is accepted subject to a detailed technical edit, which is undertaken by at least two experienced medical technical editors. It is not uncommon for articles to be rejected at this stage.<br /> <br />We are extremely concerned that a paper with fundamental errors got through the initial stage, and are taking steps to ensure that it cannot occur again, but are confident that the technical edit would have revealed the errors.<br /> <br />SAGE is committed to ensuring that the peer review and acceptance process for all our journals, whether traditional subscription-based or Open Access, is robust.<br /> <br />A fuller statement is posted on the SAGE website:<br />http://tinyurl.com/jwldtgm.<br /><br />David Ross<br />Executive Publisher, Open Access<br />SAGE<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12088280391652819757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-42888224819091693922013-10-08T04:35:27.061-04:002013-10-08T04:35:27.061-04:00Thanks very much Gunther and John for clarifying a...Thanks very much Gunther and John for clarifying a few potential issues with the data set and methods. The study has flaws but at least post-publication peer review seems to be working. <br /><br />"Was our journal excluded, even though he did send me the paper by email and tried to convince me to accept it by paying money?"<br /><br />Gunther, in the correspondence you uploaded I see no evidence in the text of the emails that the fake authors tried to convince you to accept the manuscript. This is not to excuse Science and Bohannon for the many worrisome issues that surround their ill-conceived experiment, but simply to say that how readers interpret things can vary depending on a lot of assumptions readers make about the writer. <br /><br />As a comment by Renee on Retraction Watch noted http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/science-reporter-spoofs-hundreds-of-journals-with-a-fake-paper/, the email correspondence between the fake authors and the journals constitute an interesting source of data for an anthropological (or linguistic anthropology) case study. Karen Shashoknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-12820883135596535972013-10-08T03:04:50.512-04:002013-10-08T03:04:50.512-04:00Dear Gunther,
I'm impressed by the way you han...Dear Gunther,<br />I'm impressed by the way you handled this. I am very fond of the whole Open Acces movement, and openness in most public matters too, for that matter. I think this (call it the #JMIR angle if you want) should be also opened up to the public. I understand it might not be the galant thing to do from the point of view of an editor per se. But I think there must be a way to dissect this properly, and openly towards the "bigger" public. E.g. Also the casual readers of that came across any rendering of this strange experiment. In short: also this odyssey should be "open access".<br />Doesn't all this kind of seem you strange? It may be a long shot. But I wonder if there's no one behind that study that has any intrrests in traditional publishing. (I'm trying to establish motive for such an elaborate enterprise: this was a lot of letters and man-hours. Who payed for this??)<br />But I repeat: this odyssey should be "open access".Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06252609136366763701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-47077458528197293432013-10-07T18:31:49.308-04:002013-10-07T18:31:49.308-04:00Dear Dr. Eysenbach-
Here are my answers to your q...<br />Dear Dr. Eysenbach-<br /><br />Here are my answers to your questions:<br /><br />1. If JMIR is not listed in the spreadsheet, and the emails are also not included in the data appendix, what else is missing from the data provided by Bohannon? Were there any other journal editors contacted?<br /><br />Thanks to your help, I have now found several records that were missing from the data. All of them were journals that were excluded from the analysis either because they required a fee for submission or I discovered during the editing process that they were in fact journals with publisher to which I had already submitted a paper. (Both of the 2 duplicates resulted in acceptances, twice, nonetheless.) Here is the change log that I will be including with the updated data:<br /><br />CHANGE LOG (7 October 2013)<br /> <br />The following records were added:<br />187 (submission fee required)<br />254 (duplicate submission, same publisher as 488)<br />293 (submission fee required)<br />398 (duplicate submission, same publisher as 358)<br /><br />The following records were removed:<br />85 (no paper submitted)<br /><br />The following records were modified:<br />89 (correct name and URL of publisher now identified)<br /><br />NOTE: None of the above changes affect the analysis as they do not change the tally of acceptances or rejections.<br /><br />2. If I would have accepted the paper sent to me by email, waiving the submission fee on grounds of being from an author from a developing country, would JMIR have been suddenly included in the list of journals which accepted the paper?<br /><br />Only if you did ultimately accept the paper. If on the other hand you rejected the paper, you would have been included among the rejections. Instead, I was not able to submit the paper because of the submission fee, so it was excluded from analysis.<br /><br />3. It seems a bit like the inclusion/exclusion criteria were not set a-priori but were made up as he went along (which is a rather unscientific approach). It is clear from our website and submission process that we charge a submission fee, why did he attempt to submit the paper anyways? And why does he later write that these journals were excluded?<br /><br />It is not true that "the inclusion/exclusion criteria were not set a-priori but were made up as he went along". In the article I spell out my criteria clearly. <br /><br />4. There is a bit of an ethical issue here if he submits a flawed paper by email and communicates with me under a false identity, and never debriefs me saying that this was part of an investigation. In fact, any Ethics Board would probably require that a study involving fraud/deception at least debriefs study participants (some may even require retrospective informed consent).<br /><br />This is a legitimate issue for debate and it is addressed by a bioethicist named Dan Wikler in the comments section of Peter Suber's online discussion here:<br />https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/CRHeCAtQqGq<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />John Bohannon<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-48281513057085762982013-10-07T10:34:05.847-04:002013-10-07T10:34:05.847-04:00Dear Dr. Eysenbach-
The emails are in the data. L...Dear Dr. Eysenbach-<br /><br />The emails are in the data. Look at folder 293 in emails.zip here:<br /><br />http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60/suppl/DC1<br /><br />You are right that your journal (ID 293) is not listed in the summary data spreadsheet. I added the fee-charging journals into the spreadsheet the data before posting the data. Thank you for pointing that out. I will update the data so that it is clearly listed.<br /><br />To be clear: There was no attempt to hide the fact that a paper was submitted to your journal. The submission-fee journals were excluded from the analysis, and it was a last-minute decision to include those emails at all.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />John BohannonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-2758918211127020732013-10-07T10:02:49.572-04:002013-10-07T10:02:49.572-04:00I made our email exchange with the fake author aka...I made our email exchange with the fake author aka Bohannon available online (see link above). Hopefully Bohannon or Science can answer the following questions:<br />(1) If JMIR is not listed in the spreadsheet, and the emails are also not included in the data appendix, what else is missing from the data provided by Bohannon? Were there any other journal editors contacted?<br />(2) If I would have accepted the paper sent to me by email, waiving the submission fee on grounds of being from an author from a developing country, would JMIR have been suddenly included in the list of journals which accepted the paper?<br />(3) It seems a bit like the inclusion/exclusion criteria were not set a-priori but were made up as he went along (which is a rather unscientific approach). It is clear from our website and submission process that we charge a submission fee, why did he attempt to submit the paper anyways? And why does he later write that these journals were excluded?<br />(4) Isn't there a bit of an ethical issue here if he submits a flawed paper by email and communicates with me under a false identity, and never debriefs me saying that this was part of an investigation. In fact, any Ethics Board would probably require that a study involving fraud/deception at least debriefs study participants (some may even require retrospective informed consent).Gunther Eysenbach MD MPHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03418681005679727986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-47382641172935532612013-10-07T08:21:14.259-04:002013-10-07T08:21:14.259-04:00This is very interesting news!
Would it be possibl...This is very interesting news!<br />Would it be possible to publish your exchange with Bohannan such that the community can confront him with it?<br /><br />Many thanks,<br /><br />Bjoern BrembsBjoern Brembshttp://brembs.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-55112235699871356882013-10-07T07:50:21.512-04:002013-10-07T07:50:21.512-04:00Libertas Academica is also an OASPA member. Do you...Libertas Academica is also an <a href="http://oaspa.org/member-record-libertas-academica/" rel="nofollow">OASPA member</a>. Do you still regard their journals as vanity journals?Henrik Nielsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03700088277490083360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-75863777771483529352013-10-06T14:02:40.499-04:002013-10-06T14:02:40.499-04:00Thanks for a very illuminating perspective on this...Thanks for a very illuminating perspective on this notorious incident. <br /><br />“I too was a victim of this spoof, having received several emails from this fictitious author trying to bribe me to accept his article. For the record: I didn’t even send it out for peer-review as it was out of scope. Oddly enough, these emails and my journal don’t even show up in Bohannon’s data appendix and in his denominator. Also, Bohannon writes he excluded journals which charge a submission fee, but yet, his data appendix of 314 lists several journals that do charge submission fees. If they were excluded, why do they show up in his data appendix? Was our journal excluded, even though he did send me the paper by email and tried to convince me to accept it by paying money?” <br /><br />This raises serious questions about Bohannon’s data that should be answered. Could you post your correspondence with Bohannon? Is it possible that Journal of Medical Internet Research was included initially but later excluded as a result of the changes Bohannon made along the way in how he selected journals for his final sample? Comparing the dates of your correspondence with him against the dates in the emails made available as Data and Documents (Emails, zip file) would provide the answer. <br /><br />If the data were reported selectively, or if the inclusion criteria were not applied consistently, this would by an additional and very serious problem with the article. <br /> <br />Karen Shashoknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-43520908225551715512011-09-05T03:40:03.005-04:002011-09-05T03:40:03.005-04:00Knowledge sharing is vital in this day and age. Wh...Knowledge sharing is vital in this day and age. What you pointed out must be kept in mind by all those who contribute to it, "help to transform the often sluggish process of scholarly communication and accelerate scientific progress.<br />Obviously, speeding up processes must be done without sacrificing quality and integrity"Panic Awayhttp://www.panicaway.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-29419947415718132062011-07-05T20:00:46.907-04:002011-07-05T20:00:46.907-04:00Good news. Congratulation.Good news. Congratulation.Bayanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04211398794919194401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-88793677514798787582011-02-02T13:24:51.488-05:002011-02-02T13:24:51.488-05:00@Penglish - yes, and the article lists some other ...@Penglish - yes, and the article lists some other medical wiki projects, however, I think the thrust of the article is that we (as MDs) should concentrate our efforts on improving Wikipedia, as this is where the public turns to - a view I support 100%. I am skeptical that doctor-only-edited wikis are better than wikipedia's articles, but I am not sure if there is evidence for this - hey, I just got an idea for a research project, any students out there who want to take this on as a thesis topic?Gunther Eysenbach MD MPHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03418681005679727986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-59473614306199764952011-02-02T13:15:05.996-05:002011-02-02T13:15:05.996-05:00There's a UK project - a wiki editable by regi...There's a UK project - a wiki editable by registered medical practitioners only: http://www.ganfyd.orgPeter M B Englishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17032739079250190441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-45758071342057017182011-01-14T12:27:55.190-05:002011-01-14T12:27:55.190-05:00I'm sorry- but why would anyone want to archiv...I'm sorry<a href="http://www.miiifs.info/" rel="nofollow">-</a> but why would anyone want to archive there tweets?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-13239018077686138872009-08-13T17:27:29.970-04:002009-08-13T17:27:29.970-04:00Gunther,
Congratulations for this well deserved a...Gunther,<br /><br />Congratulations for this well deserved award! I hope you'll get many more!<br /><br />The work you have done with your team on OJS over the last few years is helping many of us launch new publications that hopefully will have a positive impact and further help in developing apomediation as a valuable concept.Gilles Frydmanhttp://e-patients.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-60652951418763242432009-08-12T19:47:38.598-04:002009-08-12T19:47:38.598-04:00Excellent news! Appropriate recognition.Excellent news! Appropriate recognition.Jim Tillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02092503335133096747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-2605202507050495902009-08-12T12:02:30.097-04:002009-08-12T12:02:30.097-04:00Congratulations! Well-deserved.Congratulations! Well-deserved.Dorotheahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04140402663592388379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-47116425678481657702009-08-11T16:54:57.828-04:002009-08-11T16:54:57.828-04:00This was very helpful, thank you.This was very helpful, thank you.Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06686877876900979184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-25849581543757294582009-08-10T13:31:46.479-04:002009-08-10T13:31:46.479-04:00Congradulations from Germany!Congradulations from Germany!Mustafa Al-Durranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-60627599741662364432009-06-23T23:11:03.583-04:002009-06-23T23:11:03.583-04:00Congratulations!Congratulations!Bill Hookerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00366270586730870964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-398221300481648425.post-54474454975076830472009-06-22T17:58:54.693-04:002009-06-22T17:58:54.693-04:00Congratulations! It is a very good news for the eH...Congratulations! It is a very good news for the eHealth/Medicine 2.0 community!Luishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07770202718391930779noreply@blogger.com