Scientist puts his dog on the editorial boards of seven predatory journals as proof of their negligence

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/20/predatory-journals.html

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On the internet no one can tell if you are a dog.

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To be honest, I would trust Olivia’s reviews more than those of the people who run these “journals”.

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If a paper is rejected the submitter can then rightfully complain that the dog ate his homework.

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“How was work, honey?”
“Ruff.”

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There’s nothing in the rules that says a dog CAN’T be on an editorial board!

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There is also the story of the famous F.D.C. Willard:


But then cats have been involved in quantum mechanics since the days of Schrödinger.

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I get five or six emails a day from these damned ‘journals’ and their associated conferences. Now that there’s a dog on the editorial boards, I’ll have to talk to my yellow lab about that nutritional study she’s always wanted to do…

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“Olivia has consumed your work in its entirety, and will soon expel her judgement as to its substance in a public forum of her choosing. This public forum may or may not be my lawn.”

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They were probably fooled by his distinguished list of co-authors:

Also, I’d be wary of taking this line:

Because-

(and yes, there’s always one).

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Alex on the other hand has been bona fide cited as a contributor on a paper:

I defy you to read the account of Alex’s last days without having something in your eye.

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I was just explaining to my kids this evening my minimal understanding of quantum physics, using Schrodinger’s cat as the example.

It’s a small, small world!

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Further evidence that higher education is about creating “credentials”, not about educating people. Educators who don’t have the right “credentials” cannot get tenure. To get tenure you need to publish and the credentialing organizations for professors and schools (AACSB, etc.) are not picky. A small percentage of academics (in Business - can’t speak for other subjects) actually do research that is important and then they also teach. The majority do “research” that is essentially busy work that demonstrates to others that they are “researchers” and they keep their job because of their willingness to to do bullshitty “research” for good sounding journals that nobody closely looks at but which sound good to donors and the public (who foolishly think the point of a university is about teaching people stuff). The rest of us just teach and either lose their jobs (me), become adjuncts (was me), or find work in the private sector (me now).

Yeah - I’m bitter. I was the best professor (based on student evals) in my subject and at the end taught nearly 20% of the total student hours in our department. This was when I was a “clinical” professor and was paid about 60% of my tenured “colleagues” who taught fewer classes.

I would NEVER send my children to a large research university - they are NOT about education - they are entirely focused on “research”, which amounts to participation in one or more mutual masturbation societies.

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That’s Doctor Dog if you please.

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Peer review has gone to the dogs.

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Business schools are hardly representative of academics in general.

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The swine that operate these excreble journals need to be thoroughly outed done in. How about starting a “List of Execrable Journals” and accept nominations. Sadly Beall has left the field of outing these wastes of space.

Medicine, too.

http://www.badscience.net/2004/09/dr-gillian-mckeith-phd-continued/

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Similar thing happened in computer science:

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They sent the paper to Olivia Doll? She’s gonna shred it!

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