Malaysian Academics Among The Top In Fraudulent Publications Found In Global Database

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There is the possibility that many of the questionable research works published in these predatory journals were financed by public funds through research grants from the government. (MalaysiaNow) – Malaysian academics form a large chunk of those whose works were published in more than 300 “fraudulent journals” found in a respectable global citation database used to gauge tertiary institutions worldwide in annual rankings.
Fraudulent journals, also known as “predatory journals”, are publications lacking in research quality and with questionable content, which are often liberal in accepting articles without scrutiny, and in most cases, for a fee.
A total of 324 such journals published from across the world have been found to have infiltrated Scopus, a Netherlands-based global citation database made up of more than 30,000 journals covering life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences and health sciences.
The revelation, besides renewing a debate on the quality of research work by Malaysian universities, could also call into question the annual global rankings of universities.
At least two major organisations, Times Higher Education and QS, rely heavily on data from Scopus in publishing their annual rankings of universities worldwide. With more citations of its academics’ works in Scopus, a university stands a greater chance of boosting its global rankings.
The revelation is based on the work of two economists from the Czech Republic, Vit Machacek and Martin Srholec, who provided a country analysis of authors in questionable journals found in Scopus covering the period between 2015 and 2017.
While many of these authors come from countries with large populations such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Egypt, Malaysia’s listing among the top countries of origin may reflect badly on the quality of local academic work.
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