Publisher creates software to detect bogus research papers
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028748
Science : Springer, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, and the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France, are set to release an open-source piece of software called SciDetect . The software aims to automatically detect papers that are superficially legitimate but are in fact deliberate hoaxes. The need for SciDetect arose, in part, because of another piece of software, SCIgen , that automatically generates such bogus papers. Devised in 2005 by three computer science students from MIT, SCIgen strings together jargon in grammatically correct yet meaningless sentences. The software also generates plots and references. The trio wrote the software to expose the lack of peer-review at certain conferences, but after its release, SCIgen-authored papers ended up in journals, embarrassing Springer and other publishers.
