www.celalteber.comAt least four scientists have been cheating the peer review system in a whole new way: when submitting a paper to a scientific journal, they suggest reviewers with email addresses that track back to themselves; then they write a glowing review. So far, the ploy has succeeded in getting work published in Experimental Parasitology, Pharmaceutical Biology, and several other journals, including two in journals under the umbrella of publishing giant Elsevier, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week (September 30).
“I find it very shocking,” Laura Schmidt, an Elsevier publisher, told The Chronicle. “It’s very serious, very manipulative, and very deliberate.”
One such case was identified by Claudiu Supuran, editor in chief of the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry. Supuran first suspected that something was awry when reviews for a paper came back in just 1 or 2 days. After sending the paper to two more reviewers—this time chosen by Supuran—and receiving positive reviews, the journal published the paper. But after more manuscripts came in from the same author, Hyung-In Moon, now an assistant professor at Dong-A University in Busan, South Korea, Supuran’s suspicions grew, as he noticed that many of the suggested reviewers had Gmail or Yahoo email addresses, not university accounts.
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