اردو
  • Of Pakistani teachers, research fraud and HEC incompetence

    HEC file photo HEC

    Predatory and clone research journals online are increasingly being used by varsity teachers, but it is the Higher Education Commission (HEC) that has so far failed to curb this unethical practice.


    These journals offer online publishing of substandard research papers and make it easy for some Pakistani varsity teachers to commit academic fraud after online payment of a few hundred dollars.

    Teachers get promotions and other perks on the basis of their substandard research articles published in these journals, but the HEC and other relevant educational institutions and authorities have yet to take action against such journals on the internet.

    According to the publication's report, it is not very difficult to take action as the relevant authorities can use the findings of global research watchdogs that have already identified many fake, predatory and clone journals and research papers authored by Pakistani academics.

    Some examples are the Beall's List, a website that maintains a list of potential predatory journals, Retraction Watch Database, another website that keeps a record of retracted research papers (which are papers removed by a journal after publication on account of the later discovery of some malpractice or other reason), and impact-finding indexing agencies like Scopus and Web of Science.

    Due to the apparent apathy of the HEC and other authorities towards predatory and clone journals, many honest academics are also being deceived as they cite articles published in clone journals, which are sub-standard and using the name of reputed ones for deception, the publication reported, explaining that a significant number of faculty members at prestigious educational institutes of Pakistan have also published their papers in clone journals after being misled by their name.

    Some faculty members, however, seem to have deliberately committed academic fraud in reputed journals and once their malpractice was discovered, their papers were retracted.