“There is no shame.” Dissernet discovered plagiarism in translated articles

"Dissernet", which was engaged in linden dissertations, became interested in linden articles translated into English and published in quoted foreign magazines. This material will be represented by the commission to combat the falsification of scientific research under the RAS, the correspondent of the North Reali recognized.

On the website of Dissernet , a free network community of professional scientists involved in the verification of dissertations for plagiarism, there are many reports of scientists recommended for the deprivation of academic degrees. Among them are the main doctors of medical institutions, and professors, and university rector. This is the result of the work of experts who proved that a huge number of dissertations in Russia are falsified, and launched the mechanism of purification of science. A list of medical universities with the largest number of violations has already been compiled, the first line of which is occupied by MGMSU (Moscow State Medical and Dental University named after A.I. Evdokimov), where 134 dishonest work was found and two dissertation tips out of eight were closed. Due to the plagiarism found in their works, several people in the last elections to the Russian Academy of Sciences could not become academicians or corresponding members.

Recently, "Dissernet" has been engaged not only in dissertations, but also by scientific articles. "At the proposal of the RAS Commission, at least 869 articles out of 263 scientific journals were withdrawn to counter the falsification of scientific research. This seizure became the largest in the history of Russian science, the commission recommended that the commission recommended 2500 articles per plagiarism and self -plagiat," writes Viktor Ershov from Doxa. According to the reporter of Dissernet Andrei Rostovtsev, 70 thousand unscrupulous articles written in Russian have already been discovered, without taking into account those translated into English.

The St. Petersburg expert of Dissernet Larisa Melikhova told the North. Real to the correspondent, why, until recently, translated articles did not fall into the field of view of the free network community, and now everything has changed.

-We found a way to determine the translated plagiarism-articles translated from Russian into English, and translated terribly-most likely with some Yandex-translator or Google Translate. These articles are sent to foreign magazines included in the prestigious database - Scopus or WOS - and are published with a large number of co -authors. Apparently, these co -authors believed that it would not be caught by the translated plagiarism, unlike Russian. Russian, as everyone already knows, is perfectly caught, so he decline in dissertations and in articles, and here - complete expanse!

- Do you say that translations of terrible quality - and they are accepted in magazines from prestigious databases? And then - can they not drive the article through the anti -plagiarism program that exists?

- They cannot, this is the same translation, and similarity with other sources is not caught. How to determine translated plagiarism is our know-how, it is clear that I cannot disclose details. Well, these magazines have no review, if they had a reviewer - a specialist in this area, he would immediately see that there are no new results in the article - everything was picked up from other people's articles and dissertations. But the reviewing there is fictitious, and they do not catch it, and even such a poor quality of translations does not bother them. These publications are paid, according to our information, not cheap-somewhere from one to 5-6 thousand dollars, that is, magazines have a rather profitable business on this. The magazine is good - he receives his money, and the author is good - he gains co -authors, because it is cheaper. They pay all this, published, and it pays off with grants, premiums-different universities stimulate their employees differently. And most importantly, the university is good - he receives funding, grants, he will not be closed for inefficiency if his employees have many publications in such journals - this is very important for universities. Therefore, they encourage this, and some are very serious money. That is, everyone is good except Russian science. As for such magazines, the mechanism of their appearance has long been known: for two or three years, the magazine behaves decently, everything does as it should and gets into some base, most often in Scopus or Wos, and after that it is already starting to earn money. And so it lasts two or three years, until the leadership of these bases is recovered and will throw them out of there. But during this time he manages to make good money. It is thrown out, and the articles continue to indexed as Skopusov articles - what is insulting, all this garbage remains in the publication space.

- How can a scientific journal exist without serious review?

Several magazines accepted this nonsense, answered: it will cost so much, send

- Such magazines are not interested in it, at this stage you pay - and you can continue to publish anything. We conducted a wonderful experiment. One member of our group took two articles, one was a Vaino article ( Anton Vaino, the head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.-SR ) "Capitalization of the Future" about Nooscope-a device that registers changes in the noosphere, it still hangs in Russian in the section on pseudoscientific publications. And the second article was a medical, completely unbearable, about the experiment with the rats that chopped off their heads, while others mated at that time and watched the spirit of the deceased rats are transmitted to the newly born. And now our employee drove these articles through the Yandex-translator, wrote all kinds of headings and fictitious links there and sent out under the names of fictional authors to various magazines. Somewhere these articles were rejected, someone in content, someone said-it hurts bad English. But five nonsense magazines accepted this nonsense, answered: it will cost so much, send.

- And do you have these answers?

- Yes, we will publish it all, the publication is being prepared, soon all this will be open. We have different checks, first of all, we check plagiarism, and here, I think, we raised the most important layer. Of course, there are smaller problems, the issue of collections of conferences has not been resolved, but this will be the next series. While we selected 94 magazines, there are more of them, but we stopped at these as the most predatory. There are no Russians there, some foreign ones, but what countries these are: Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, some magazines mimic under the western, but this must be understood whether it is Germany, or this is a Turkish magazine that declares that it is German. Some magazines are designed for the Spanish-speaking audience-some Venezuelan magazine, for example,-and what does Russia have to do with it?

- And that suddenly everyone rushed to publish in foreign magazines?

- Not suddenly - in 2013, a government decree was adopted that our science needs to move forward and up, and for this we must be published in decent Western magazines. And so it began with this, we even built a curve, as the number of articles rushed up. After all, it is clear that science does not suddenly grow five times - and publications rushed.

In 2014, there were three publications from Russia in the journal, and in 2015 there were 80 or 300 of them

Our experts said that somewhere in 2014 they traced how it all began: at first, one person made an article and gained fictitious co-authors to make it cheaper. And then it turned out that it was very simple and beneficial for everyone, and then intermediaries appeared - apparently, they already have ready -made articles and agreements with magazines, and they send advertising: if you want to be published in the Skopusov magazine, we have five places - buy. There, co-authors can be from Kaliningrad to Tyumen, in the middle of Moscow, and everything is ripped off from a dissertation published somewhere in Yekaterinburg. And then the article was translated into English and published, she has seven co -authors who did not see each other in the eyes. In 2018-2019, more such publications went - pure plagiarism and the “team of the solyank” of the authors. We have developed signs of magazine predation. The first sign is the explosive growth of publications from Russia after 2013. Suppose that in 2014 there were three publications from Russia in the magazine, and in 2015 there were 80 or 300. Another sign-“teams of honeycombs” of 5-7 authors in all Russian articles: not because these co-authors worked together and want to present the results of their collective labor, but because they are scattered for publication-so cheaper. Moreover, these "Solyanka" include both teachers and rectors. Another criterion we have developed is difficult - the “fictitious collaboration index” is a percentage of publications with purely Russian co -authorship for publications with co -authors from developed countries. If it is much larger than one, this is a definitely predatory magazine, it is easy to find plagiarism there. And when we see on these signs that, most likely, in this magazine plagiarism, we begin to check it and always find a bunch of plagiarism cases there.

- The intermediaries you are talking about are individual people or entire firms?

- There is not even one such company, they send spam: you want to publish in Scopus - go to us, they have existed for several years, and no one has done anything with them. There were even investigations: people sent them complete nonsense, even paid money, published and watched how it works - nothing happens, they calmly continue to work and say that they do not violate the legislation. I do not understand how you can not violate the law, collecting people for a fictitious publication. Apparently, there are some holes in the legislation that they use.

- Tell me, but if people had not required so many articles, probably all this would not have happened? There are wonderful teachers, they perfectly teach students - why do they also have articles?

People are put in such conditions that they are forced. On the other hand, it is very good for crooks that exist perfectly on this

- University teachers constantly complain to us: here you catch us, and what to do, we are forced, if we do not publish, they will not extend the contract with us, we will not have a bonus. People are put in such conditions that they are forced. On the other hand, it is very good for crooks that exist perfectly on this. And honest scientists who want to work normally and publish the results of their work, lose to crooks, they are put with them in obviously unequal conditions, because there is only one criterion: the number of articles, no one looks at the quality.

As a result, we have a leader, champion, Ilya Medvedev from the Kursk branch of the Russian State Service, which in one issue of one magazine published several dozen articles. The rector of the Russian State University Natalya Pochinok, who herself lit up in such a predatory publication, solemnly handed him a letter for good work, because he raised the university to some height with his publications. Because only the number of publications is important - and it is in foreign magazines.

This is a gross violation of the rules-to change something in an already published article

Now we began to catch them, and they will quickly find workarounds, it always happens, and it has already begun, we had two very funny stories. One with a teacher of Altai State University, she found herself on our list and wrote an indignant letter: you presented my article as plagiarism, and I have all the links. Our expert climbed to check and saw that the original article in Scopus is without links, and links appeared on the magazine website - to those sources that he had previously found. The clue is simple: it itself enters the editorial board of two such magazines, but in general it is a gross violation of the rules-to change something in an already published article. By the way, we were attributed to this violation to the signs of magazine predation. The second case is with one of our “leaders” from Dagestan, he wrote a repentant letter: thank you, you are so remarkably catching incorrect publications, so they caught me, and I am grateful to you, but I corrected me, put all the links - look, I can remove me from the website of Dissernet. That is, he simply took it to those articles from which he was plowed translatedly, set links in already published articles - and writes to us that he has recovered! This is some kind of holy simplicity.

- What is all this?

- This indicates what we are talking about all the time: that there is no institution of reputation in Russian science. These people have no shame. They were caught-they only try to fix something, someone is indignant, someone suits the court, but they don’t come to anyone: they caught you-sit quietly, be silent in a rag, because it is ugly. And colleagues should look at you accordingly. I ask all the time: why are they not fired? And they say to me: under our legislation, no one is dismissed. People with decommissioned dissertations, even deprived of degrees - were deprived of many - continue to work at universities, teach. A former doctor of sciences, devoid of degree, is working at one St. Petersburg university, and no one even discusses this.

-But when an employee ceases to arrange a leadership for political reasons or because of criticism of the authorities, they instantly terminate the contract with him-this is very easy.

- As the co -founder of our Dissernet Andrei Zazakin told me, we can only dismiss for politics. I think this is also a reflection of the same situation with the institution of reputation: if she suffered from this, it would be easier for universities to dismiss such people.

- Science has always been associated with some moral concepts: honesty, service ...

If the article was seized, then this is a serious blow to the work of false scientists

- Of course, science always holds and holds on the reputations of scientists. Why, in these terrible Indian-Pakistan magazines there are no articles of scientists from America, from Germany? Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Türkiye is. We have a huge problem with the reputation, we need to do something with this. But there is a movement. Until recently, Russian science did not know what the seizure or retraction of the published article is, some magazines wrote to us: this is impossible, because the article has already been published, what do you want from us? And now it has been seized - retreated - already 2500 articles, the process has gone actively, and this changes the situation. At least the authors themselves are already afraid to contact magazines publishing any garbage, because articles can be removed from there. Many predatory magazines are already excluded from Scopus and Wos, but many are still there, we will complain, and I hope that they will be excluded - and the articles will be seized too. Because, even if the magazine is excluded, and the article remains, you can refer to it, it remains in science, and if it was seized, then this is a serious blow to the work of such false scientists.

- Do you make a rating of universities most of all lit up in predatory magazines?

- Yes, especially if the rectors also lit up - we have such 11. In the first place in our KFU - Kazan Federal University , it is not the largest, but it is included in 5–100 - the explosion of these publications is associated with the election of these universities under the 5–100 program, as leading, supporting in their regions that should move science. So Kazan got there, only I don’t know where he moves science. In the second place, we reached the PLAKHANOV REU , the famous Pleshka, in third place - the RSSU , in the fourth - Jufa , the Southern Federal University. There are also Petersburg characters of the list-our St. Petersburg Mountain University in 10th place, St. Petersburg State University in the first twenty, in 19th place. I don’t know if this is somehow due to the fact that these universities are given the right to award academic degrees.

- What will you do with all this now?

- As far as we know, the Ministry of Education prepares new criteria for evaluating the activities of scientists, and there is information that it is supposed to continue this system, where the main thing is the number of publications. But many are already expressing against - maybe it will be possible to stop it or at least adjust it. Let experts think how to evaluate scientists, our task is to show that current methods work poorly. We spend huge budget money on bonuses and grants - and mostly they go to crooks.

We spend huge budget money on bonuses and grants - and mostly they go to crooks

Our list is now 1200 names, because there are many co-authors of these articles.

Doctor of Historical Sciences, the leading researcher at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Irina Levinskaya, also considers the system of evaluating the work of scientists in the number of articles in foreign magazines deeply vicious.

- The system is absolutely crazy: in our institutions, work is evaluated according to the point system, and if we publish an article in rating magazines in a foreign language, but we get a lot of these points. But now a change has occurred: if earlier we received points for articles in Russian, now it is minimized. For example, last year I had a book for which I received 74 points, and this year I received 80 points for a small article in the western rating magazine. This means that scientists cease to publish books and articles in Russian - and what's the point? We don’t get anything for that! That is, science in Russian is destroyed, which, from my point of view, is an absolute catastrophe.

Вся эта наукометрическая система абсолютно безумна, для гуманитарных наук особенно

В самом деле, вместо того чтобы в течение пяти лет сидеть, трудиться, работать в архивах, печатать материалы и в результате опубликовать книгу, проще опубликовать парочку коротеньких статеек на английском языке, ну, или на немецком, в одном из престижных журналов – и все, вопрос окончен. У нас ничтожная зарплата, а дополнительные деньги начисляются в зависимости от того, что мы делаем в течение года, и основные баллы идут за статьи на английском языке в рейтинговых западных журналах. Вся эта наукометрическая система абсолютно безумна, для гуманитарных наук особенно. Ее надо отменять. На самом деле все люди в любой серьезной науке живут по гамбургскому счету. Я прекрасно знаю безо всяких баллов, кто работает серьезно, кто чего стоит, на чьи работы нужно обращать внимание, а вся эта возня с баллами – это профанация науки. Да, есть великие ученые, которые не прошли этот тест, но мы же все равно знаем, что они великие. А нас в результате загнали в непонятные, чудовищные условия, которые мешают абсолютно всем.