Flutterby™! : Chinese Knockoffs

Not everything made in China is a questionable. But an amazing variety of Chinese knockoffs are being knocked off, from telephones to watches to condoms. Now the academic journal appears to be the next victim.

The journal Nature has written on a publisher of over 34 journals, some which have included articles already published elsewhere. Editorial board members for some journals are listed but never actually asked to join the board. The same IP hosts another company that runs conferences. Evidently, all that is needed to get into the conference and have a paper published is to pay the registration fee. I guess the next step is to be able to pay to have your articles cited, boosting your impact factor.

And like the legitimate manufacturing base, China is trying to create its own University system to provide higher education to its booming middle class. A research community also is necessary in support of the Universities. So it's natural that new journals and conferences would also be springing up to provide an outlet for research results.

Hopefully this won't result in the death of open publishing of scientific research.