Revealing the gray industrial chain behind the title evaluation paper, China Association for Science and Technology has started special rectification.
For many industries, such as college teachers, engineers, doctors and nurses, publishing papers is a "hard lever" for being awarded professional titles. Where there is demand, there is a market. On the network platform, a large number of intermediaries and sellers have entered the line of sight by searching for keywords such as "paper" and "publication". They claim to be "providing topics, writing and publishing services" and "one-stop, time-saving and efficient". It seems that with their help, it is very easy to publish articles in regular journals.
Beijing Youth Daily reporter noted that the generation of papers has spawned a complete interest chain, but the risks behind it are often ignored by people who are bent on "taking shortcuts". Due to the eagerness to publish, some people have been drained to various agencies with mixed quality. What’s more, even the follow-up employment notices, periodicals and magazines are false.
Take advantage of the victim’s "guilty conscience"
Junior high school students cheat highly educated doctors.
Ms. Wang, 41, from Jiangyan District, Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, is an employee of a local hospital. Due to the evaluation of professional titles by her unit, she needs to publish papers in relevant academic journals. Ms. Wang, who hasn’t written for many years, has some troubles. She was tempted when she heard from a friend that there are "gunmen" on the Internet who specialize in "writing and publishing papers on behalf of others".
In May last year, Ms. Wang found many "merchants" who wrote and published papers on behalf of others through online search. Later, she chose one of the "institutions" for a simple consultation and added the micro-signal provided by the other party to establish contact. The other party claims that it can not only distribute papers, but also provide ghostwriting services according to professional needs, and ensure that the papers written on behalf of it can be published.
The other party also sent some previous "successful examples" to Ms. Wang, and said that "the company should cooperate with several journals in depth" and reminded not to worry. After the two sides agreed on the price, Ms. Wang first paid the other party a "deposit" of 3,000 yuan through WeChat, and agreed to write the paper and talk about the publication after confirmation.
Three months later, Ms. Wang received the paper as scheduled, and the content was related to the topic she provided, but the quality was not high and there was no research result, so it should be difficult to publish it under normal circumstances. The other party told her that as long as she paid the manuscript fee again, she could publish it in a national journal. Although Ms. Wang was somewhat suspicious, she turned to the agreed 5,500 yuan. After the transfer, I waited for several months and didn’t see the paper published.
Realizing that she was cheated, at the end of April this year, Ms. Wang, who was ashamed and angry, was persuaded by her family and chose to call the police. After receiving the police, Jiangyan police inquired in detail about the process of being cheated and collected and verified relevant transfer records and other evidence. Later, the police arrested 12 suspects, including Huang.
According to Sun Qiao, a police officer handling the case in Jiangyan, most of the criminal gangs have junior high school education and only two have high school education. They simply don’t have the ability to write and distribute professional papers, but they have mastered some "routines" and "words" for writing and distributing papers. There are more than 1,000 cases involving gangs, and most of the victims involved are doctors and nurses. The amount of fraud per person is about 5,000 to 10,000 yuan.
In addition to the online platform advertisements that deceived Ms. Wang, Sun Qiao said that there are still several staff members in the gang who are responsible for "running business" offline. They focused their attention on hospitals around the country, photographed the address book of medical staff and summarized it into the company system. After that, other staff in the office made up the editor’s identity of a certain periodical, and sent text messages to doctors and nurses one by one to ask if there were any related needs and seek specific "cooperation".
"It is disgraceful to write and publish papers on behalf of others. After discovering that I was cheated, I chose ‘ Silence ’ Criminal gangs are very smart, and they use this psychology to commit fraud. " Sun Qiao said.
"Take a shortcut" for evaluating professional titles
Received a fake magazine after handing out the paper.
Compared with Ms. Wang in Jiangsu who didn’t even see the sample publication after spending money, Mr. Zhang in Beijing is even more bitter and can’t tell. Mr. Zhang is the backbone of a construction company in Beijing. This year, he waited for the opportunity to evaluate the intermediate title. Because Mr. Zhang was eager to publish his paper within the time limit stipulated in the title selection, he searched online and found a magazine that claimed to be able to distribute core periodicals on his behalf.
After Mr. Zhang provided his own paper, the "magazine editor" told Mr. Zhang that the content of his paper was really not very good, and it might be a little difficult to publish it, but they could provide paid ghostwriting services for Mr. Zhang. I thought that I would have to invest a lot of time and energy in writing another paper. If I didn’t say it, I might still fail. So after careful consideration, Mr. Zhang decided to spend money to solve the problem.
Twenty days later, Mr. Zhang received the periodical. Looking at his published papers, he felt that the money was not wasted. However, when he was full of joy and took the published paper to select the title, he was rejected. "Just say that this magazine is fake and ask me where I contacted this magazine. I also wrote a review."
The title was not evaluated and was punished by the unit, which made Mr. Zhang very regretful. This magazine in my hand is very formal and clearly printed with the serial number of the public issue. How can it be fake?
So he contacted the editor who helped him publish the paper at the first time. Unexpectedly, the other party changed his previous enthusiasm and said very strongly that the unit’s disapproval was a matter of the unit and had nothing to do with them. It was impossible to get a refund, and then he was blacked out. At this time, Mr. Zhang felt that something was wrong and immediately reported the police.
The magazine provided by Mr. Zhang to Shunyi police in Beijing has a thickness of more than 100 pages, and its cover and layout look like a professional magazine in the construction industry. However, Shunyi police confirmed through investigation that this was a typical case of impersonating a regular magazine to commit fraud. Mr. Zhang received a counterfeit fake magazine, and the editors of the so-called magazine who contacted Mr. Zhang and collected money were also impersonating.
The police found that this is a criminal gang that swindles people who need to publish papers. The members of the gang have a clear division of labor and are very cunning. They make full use of the victim’s reluctance to let others know that they are writing and publishing papers on their behalf, and commit tens of thousands of crazy crimes. According to the survey, there are many kinds of magazines that this gang pretends to be, including medicine, science and technology, etc.
The reporter of Beijing Youth Daily noticed that many people who participated in the evaluation of Beijing’s professional titles in 2021 reported to the media that they were disqualified from participating in this year’s professional titles because the submitted journals were judged as false journals after submitting the preliminary examination materials.
These participants who have the same experience have one thing in common. They all send their papers to an intermediary or "editor" instead of directly contacting the publishing unit of the journal. After the intermediary arranged for the publication of the article, the participants even got a paper-based periodical with a unified serial number. They said that they did not expect to encounter fake journals.
China Association for Science and Technology has started special rectification.
Beijing is recorded in the integrity archives.
The reporter of Beijing Youth Daily noticed that a special rectification has been started for the cooperation between journals and "paper intermediaries" in spamming papers. On November 8th, official website, China Association for Science and Technology, issued the "Notice on Carrying out Special Inspection on Spamming of Papers in Journals in Charge of China Association for Science and Technology". According to the circular, the target of this special inspection is all journals whose papers are published by China Association for Science and Technology. Among them, it is important to check the periodicals with more than 2,000 papers published in the whole year, the periodicals with most papers of no more than 5,000 words or no more than 3 pages in each issue, the periodicals suspected of publishing papers beyond the scope in the annual inspection and reading in the past three years, and the periodicals with dense publishing cycles such as semi-monthly, weekly and so on.
The notice also mentioned that serious violations such as renting and selling periodical number pages and cooperating with "paper intermediaries" should be dealt with and corrected seriously according to law. Periodicals that are unsustainable and do not have the corresponding ability to publish and check are changed to the competent organizer, closed and cancelled.
On November 10th, 2021, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security issued the "Notice on Maintaining the Integrity Environment of Professional Title Evaluation" in official website. According to the circular, applicants who provide false materials, plagiarize other people’s works and academic achievements, or take other improper means will be disqualified in accordance with relevant regulations and recorded in the "blacklist" of professional title evaluation, and those who have obtained professional titles will be revoked and recorded in the integrity archives of professional title evaluation.
In addition, the notice also stated that the evaluation system for representative works of achievements has been fully implemented in Beijing. The applicant can independently select project reports, research reports, technical reports, engineering plans, design documents, performance reports, patents, monographs, papers and other performance achievements to submit to the title review. Please don’t believe the false propaganda of "fake journals", but pay attention to summarizing and refining the achievements in technology research and development, technology reform, technology application, standard setting, academic research and other aspects in daily work, and timely summarize and sort them out, and declare the title evaluation with the achievements that best reflect the ability level.
[Expert advice]
Papers and other "paper" indicators can not fully reflect the professional title ability.
Academic transformation achievements or ability assessment should be added.
Lawyer Deng Qianqiu of Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm told Beijing Youth Daily reporter that if the participants really don’t know that the periodical that published their papers is a false periodical, and the intermediary conceals the fact that the periodical is false and fabricates the truth that the paper has been published on the periodical, according to the relevant judicial interpretation, if the intermediary defrauds the property with a value of 3,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, it may constitute a crime of fraud in criminal law.
If the periodical that publishes the paper is a real periodical, but the paper is not written by the participants, but written by the intermediary, the intermediary’s behavior is illegal; If the intermediary is an enterprise, the amount of illegal business operation reaches 500,000 yuan or the illegal income reaches 100,000 yuan, or if the intermediary is a natural person, the amount of illegal business operation reaches 50,000 yuan or the illegal income reaches 10,000 yuan, it should be criminally prosecuted for the crime of suspected illegal business operation.
Shen Teng, an adjunct professor at China University of Political Science and Law, a tutor for master students, and a lawyer at Beijing Shuaihe Law Firm, told Beijing Youth Daily that the personnel who participated in the title selection should "go straight and do the right thing", and integrity is the first. If the whole paper is written by others, it is definitely suspected of academic fraud and should be included in the "blacklist" of academic dishonesty.
Shen Teng said that the paper agency regarded writing on behalf of others as an industry, which ruined the social atmosphere. But the root cause is that even if this gang is destroyed, there will be other gangs like it; If this model is destroyed, it will be transformed into another model. The reason is determined by the supply and demand market of "paper" qualification examination. At present, many professional titles are evaluated by indicators, not by ability. And what is the index evaluation, as long as it meets the "paper" conditions on the appearance, this is not the ability to present.
For normative intermediaries, it is an organization that is familiar with procedures and data standards for qualification declaration. They are limited to assisting and helping the standardization of application procedures and standards of materials, and cannot participate in entities (writing on behalf of others and paying for them). In the above cases, it is no problem for the intermediary to fabricate relevant facts for the purpose, and it is classified as fraud.
Shen Teng suggested that "paper" indicators such as papers can’t fully reflect a person’s professional title ability, and academic transformation achievements or ability assessment and even psychological testing should be added. By face-to-face, video or practice, the appraisers’ academic, achievements and abilities are randomly verified in substance. Once fraud is found, or verified by reporting, it will be included in the national academic integrity credit information sharing platform, and accountability will be restricted.
Text/reporter Zhu Jianyong