BOHANNON, John, Predatory Publishing Sting Operation
In 2013, Science correspondent John Bohannon sent a deliberately flawed paper to 304 open-access journals to see how many would accept it.
Bohannon invented a study that claimed a substance derived from a lichen could inhibit cancer cells. He sent versions of the manuscript to hundreds of journals under fictitious names. The paper had flaws that a reviewer should have caught.
Of the 304 journals approached, 157 accepted the paper and 98 rejected it. Some journals that appeared to have reviewed the submission asked for changes without addressing the basic defects. Bohannon reported the results in Science under the title Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?
The investigation showed how poorly some of the journals screened manuscripts. It looked at a selected set of open-access journals and did not include a comparison group of subscription journals.
A related topic is Grievance Studies Affair.
Bibliography:
- Bohannon, J. (2013). Who’s afraid of peer review? Science, 342(6154), 60–65.