Is the website you submitted genuine? In real life, many groups have practical needs such as the publication of scientific research results and the evaluation of professional titles, and the only way is to submit articles to academic journals. However, there are many copycat academic journal websites on the Internet, and compared with the official websites, it is almost difficult to distinguish between true and false.
According to the investigation of Nandu reporters, these cottage websites have low development costs, but the search ranking is quite high, and they attract others to submit articles online by "cloning" the content of regular journals. In this regard, many academic journal editors said that due to limited time and energy, the cost of rights protection is high, and they often feel helpless. Some journal editors believe that the control of fake websites of academic journals is a huge project, which requires the joint participation and joint efforts of government departments, law enforcement departments, network operators and journal editing and publishing departments.
Journal websites are copied:
After searching, it appears on the home page and can be submitted online
Sponsored by the Institute of Financial and Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Journal of Finance and Trade Economics is the core journal of the Chinese (Peking University Edition). Recently, the reporter searched on Baidu for the keyword "Finance and Trade Economic Magazine", and the first place was its official website, with the "official" logo in the upper right corner with white characters on a blue background. However, there is also a website at the top of the ranking, the domain name suffix is .cn, which is displayed as "Welcome to the official website of the journal "Finance and Trade Economics".
Open this so-called "official website", the page is divided into "journal introduction", "journal guide", "submission guide", "online submission" and other columns, the overall structure and color of the website is very similar to the regular website, even the filing number at the bottom of the page is exactly the same as the regular website.
Nandu reporter asked the "Finance and Trade Economy" magazine for verification, and the other party said that the website with the domain name suffix .cn is actually a fake website, and they have reflected it to Baidu, but it has not been solved.
Comparison of true and false websites of the journal "Finance and Trade Economics": the upper is a regular website, and the lower is a fake website.
The journal "Ecological Economy" sponsored by Yunnan Education Publishing House has also been targeted by fake websites. Recently, the reporter used the "Ecological Economy Magazine" to conduct a keyword search on Baidu, and a website with a domain name of "www.shengtaijj.cn" appeared on the first article on the home page. The website advertises it as an official website with a "journal guide", but in the past the journal could only view the title and abstract, there was no full text; there was a "submission guide", but there was no email address. In the "Online Submission" column, contributors can complete the submission by filling in their names, contact information, and contact address, and submitting the submitted articles.
The reporter consulted the editorial board of "Ecological Economy", and the staff immediately responded: "That is a fake website." According to the guidance of the staff, the reporter found that the correct submission of the journal was only the mailbox and the CNKI portal, "in addition to which no website has been opened."
A copycat website that counterfeits the journal Ecoeconomics.
Mineral Rock is a geological academic journal co-sponsored by The Sichuan Society of Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry and Chengdu University of Technology. The journal has never opened a website, but it has been "preempted" by the copycat website. The editorial staff of the journal was deeply frustrated by this: "It also intercepted many of our articles, no way." The official website is not something that the editorial department can do, it depends on the school, and it has not been done yet. It is understood that the editorial department of the journal has previously received feedback from the submitted authors on the fake website, and one author has also paid a "review fee" to the fake website. Staff at several journals have repeatedly stressed that their journals do not have "review fees."
A copycat website that counterfeits the journal Mineral Rock.
Reporter Investigation:
Can be registered in bulk, and the construction is only a few hundred yuan
Nandu reporters compared a number of academic journals and magazines found that most of these paper journals only left address, telephone, mailbox and other information, and did not indicate the website URL. The reporter learned from many sources that many academic journals and magazines have not yet developed and built their own websites, and some only have public accounts, and mark the contact information for submissions in their own public accounts.
Many contributors have been relying on search engines to obtain submission channels for the sake of convenience. In this case, some people take advantage of the loophole to register fake websites of academic journals in batches to attract contributors to "take the bait" and seek benefits in an improper way.
The reporter's investigation found that there are multiple domain names registered by the same registrant in batches on the Internet, all of which were developed as copycat journal websites. The journals that are copied include university journals and academic journals in professional fields. The domain extension of these fake websites is .cn, and it is understood that this domain name costs less. The reporter inquired on Wanwang that the same name suffix .cn price was 29 yuan in the first year, and the suffix .com was 63 yuan for the first year.
In addition, the reporter's inquiry found that the IP addresses of these domain names are not in the territory. According to the analysis of the article of Niu Xiaohu of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Shijiazhuang University, most of the hosts of fake websites are placed overseas, are not subject to domestic domain name filing regulations, and the price is cheap, and a server can open multiple websites.
How much does it cost to develop a copycat journal website? A software developer told reporters that without host space and domain name, it only costs 300 yuan; plus host space and domain name, about 400 yuan. The developers said that after the website framework is built, they can fill in the content themselves, and there is no special maintenance in the later stage.
Proxy Essay Scam:
Charging more than 10,000 yuan, the journal said that there was no cooperation
According to cases reported by the media in the past, after the victim submits an article to the shanzhai journal website, someone will contact the victim disguised as an "editor" and promise that as long as a sum of money is paid, the article will be published. When the victim paid a few thousand yuan and then urged him to inquire about the publication, he found that he had not received any response.
Although such deception is not clever, the deceived often do. Wang Yanjun of the editorial department of the Journal of Henan University of Technology once wrote an analysis that some contributors have a fluke mentality, believing that they can publish articles by spending more money; only by raising the awareness of prevention can they protect their rights and interests from being infringed.
The reporter found that there is another form of fake journal website - journal distribution network. The webpage of the journal distribution network usually contains information about a variety of well-known journals, which plays a role in draining traffic. Due to stricter regulations, most of these websites do not recognize their business as "paper distribution", but call it "academic consultation, journal recommendation, publication support, editing and editing".
The "Academic Consultant" of the journal's website introduced the agency process of paper publication to reporters. It said that after the contributors pay a 10% deposit, they will send the article to the magazine for review, and the results of the review will be published within three working days; the review will be approved, the publication service agreement will be signed, and a 40% deposit will be paid; the remaining 50% deposit will be paid after receiving the notice of use by the magazine. The reporter consulted the publication price of a Chinese core journal, and the other party said that the total cost of publishing an article was 12,000 yuan, including review, revision, editing service fees and "layout fees".
The above-mentioned "academic consultants" also said that they are formally registered enterprise units, "company cooperation, honest management, signing contracts are guaranteed", as for the method of cooperation, "to put it bluntly, it is to spend money to dredge". The reporter inquired and learned that the formal registered company it claimed was located in Chengdu, Sichuan, and was a commercial and trading company, and its business scope had nothing to do with academic aspects. The reporter also asked the academic journals involved for verification, the journal magazine said: "There is no cooperation with any company, the correct way to submit the article is the mailbox published on the official website, please do not believe others." ”
How is it governed?
Experts suggest building a unified platform for submission and review
Some legal circles told Nandu reporters that the act of counterfeiting academic journal websites for profit is suspected of fraud. The relevant judgment cases show that the penalties for such fraud crimes range from several years to more than ten years.
The Intermediate People's Court of Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, has published a relevant judgment. Defendant Yang Mouhu ranked high in the search of his fake magazine's website link through bidding and ranking promotion in the 360 search engine; at the same time, arranged for multiple people to pretend to be "editors" and other identities, accepted contributor consultation, agreed refunds, reprinted publications, and reviewed, produced and sent relevant magazine manuscript acceptance notices.
After appraisal and audit, from October 2018 to April 2019, Yang Mouhu's fraud gang defrauded 2,816 people, and the income from fraud such as "review fee" and "layout fee" exceeded 2.35 million yuan. The court convicted Yang Mouhu of fraud in the second instance and sentenced him to 13 years' imprisonment. In addition, the reporter's search found that relevant departments in various localities have also carried out special rectification actions many times.
Although the relevant departments have a legal basis for punishing fake journal websites, many magazines still feel that there are difficulties in actually coping. Especially in the case of limited time and energy, it is impossible to monitor the Internet all the time, and even if a fake website is found, it is necessary to produce evidence and provide various information, and the cost of rights protection is also very high. In the face of the endless stream of fake websites, a number of magazine relevant people said that they can only remind the submitted authors to pay more attention, distinguish the true from the false, and avoid unnecessary losses.
In this regard, Luo Juan, editorial department of the journal Fisheries Research, once said that the control of counterfeit websites of academic journals is a huge project, which requires the joint participation and joint efforts of government authorities, law enforcement departments, network operators and journal editing and publishing departments. In addition to cracking down on counterfeit websites and applying for official website certification, Luo Juan also mentioned the importance of "building a unified submission platform". Wang Wenqing and others in the editorial department of the Journal of Central China Normal University also issued a paper advocating that the relevant government departments should lead and the national academic journals participate in the construction of a unified manuscript processing platform for domestic academic journals to effectively manage the submission and manuscript processing process.
Written by: Nandu, N video reporter Ma Hui
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