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World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology

The World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology or WASET is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals. The publisher has been listed as a "potential, possible, or probable" predatory publisher by American library scientist Jeffrey Beall[1] and is listed as such by the Max Planck Society[2] and Stop Predatory Journals.[3] WASET's estimated annual revenue in 2017 alone was over $4 million,[4][5] with other estimates ranging from $8.9 million to $11.9 million for the years 2014 to 2019 combined.[6]

World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
StatusActive
FounderCemal Ardil
Country of originTurkey
DistributionWorldwide
Publication typesOpen access journals
Nonfiction topicsScience, technology, and medicine
Official websitewww.waset.org

Conferences

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WASET has been accused of arranging predatory conferences, in order to artificially boost the academic credentials of presenters and paper submitters.[7][8] It claims to organize several thousands of scientific conferences a year, using names that are the same or similar to real conferences organized by established scientific groups.[9][10] WASET also appears to operate the website "Conference Index", which claims to be a database of international conferences but only lists events from WASET.[11]

Legitimate conferences have publicly warned of identically named, fake WASET conferences.[12][13] In 2015, the University of Toronto released a "scam advisory" about a purported conference on their premises advertised by WASET.[14][15] In 2018 WASET advertised 49,844 conferences, many of which share similar names.[16] Hundreds of conferences may be scheduled for the same location on the same day.[17][18] For example, 116 simultaneous scientific meetings were scheduled in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro in February 2016.[19][20]

The conferences are low-quality, described in one case as a "Potemkin village"[21] and anyone can present a paper by simply paying the registration fee.[22] Conferences are planned many years in advance.[20] The website includes a section on "Featured Locations" featuring photos of popular tourist destinations.[23] Names of researchers have been included as conference committee members, without their knowledge or consent.[19][24]

Organization

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WASET is based in Turkey and is registered in Azerbaijan.[25] Its domain name was registered 2007 with a contact address in Dubai.[26] It is run by Cemal Ardil, a former science teacher, with assistance from his daughter Ebru and his son Bora.[5] Cemal Ardil is also the person who has published the most articles on the WASET website.[27][28] Before taking on the name WASET, the organization was known under the name of "Enformatika".[27][28][29][30]

Journal indexing

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Journals are indexed in WASET's "International Science Index", not to be confused with the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) index, i.e. the Web of Science.[17] WASET journals were indexed by Scopus and listed in the SCImago Journal Rank from 2009 until 2011, when the coverage was cancelled.[31] They were furthermore included in Qualis, an official Brazilian system for classifying scientific literature, which guides researchers in choosing journals for publication. This inclusion was called a "serious failure" by scientists interviewed by Folha de S.Paulo, a Brazilian daily newspaper.[19]

Media attention

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In 2013 one of WASET's journals, the International Journal of Medical, Pharmaceutical, Biological, and Life Sciences, accepted an obviously fake article in a sting operation by John Bohannon. The resulting article and data were published in Science.[32]

In mid-July 2018, a research team of journalists including Süddeutsche Zeitung, ARD, ORF, BR, Falter and Le Monde published articles on unscientific and predatory publishers, including WASET and OMICS.[33][34][35] The group of journalists presented their findings at the 2018 DEF CON 26 conference in a talk entitled "Inside the Fake Science Factory".[36][37][4] They detail how a WASET conference works, show how they gave a presentation on a ludicrous paper (generated using SCIgen[38]) to the gathered academics, and how they confronted the single person organizing the conference. The journalists state that their "findings highlight the prevalence of the pseudo-academic conferences, journals and publications and the damage they can and are doing to society".[36]

References

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  1. ^ "Predatory publishing: Evaluating potentially predatory journals". Salisbury University Libraries. 2019-03-28. Retrieved 2020-02-25.
  2. ^ "Qualitätssicherung in der Wissenschaft". Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (in German). Max Planck Society. 2018-07-20. Archived from the original on 2018-07-24. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
  3. ^ "List of Predatory Publishers". Stop Predatory Journals. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
  4. ^ a b Eckert, Svea; Krause, Till; Sumner, Chris (2018-08-11). "Slides: Inside the Fake Science Factory" (PDF). media.defcon.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-05-11. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  5. ^ a b Oberhaus, Daniel (2018-08-14). "Hundreds of Researchers From Harvard, Yale and Stanford Were Published in Fake Academic Journals". Motherboard. Retrieved 2018-08-14. netted the Ardils an estimated $4.1 million in 2017 alone
  6. ^ "How many conferences does WASET organise?". Predatory Journals and Conferences. 2021-03-07. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2021-06-19.
  7. ^ Spiewak, Martin (2017-10-25). "Wissenschaftskonferenzen: Tagen im Zwielicht". Die Zeit (in German). Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  8. ^ Spears, Tom (2017-03-10). "When pigs fly: Fake science conferences abound for fraud and profit". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 2017-11-08.
  9. ^ "WASET Bogus and Fake Conferences". fakeconferences.blogspot.com. 2014-02-02. Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  10. ^ De Boer, Richard (2015-07-04). "Academische nepcongressen blijken lucratieve groeimarkt" [Academic fake conventions turn out to be lucrative growth markets]. de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  11. ^ "Conferences All Over The World". Conference Index. WASET. Archived from the original on 15 February 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  12. ^ "Beware of fake conferences". 26th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN). 2016-11-11. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  13. ^ "ICP12 2016 in Utrecht!". 12th International Conference on Paleoceanography (ICP12). 2015. Archived from the original on 2016-09-14. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  14. ^ McCrostie, James (2016-05-11). "'Predatory conferences' stalk Japan's groves of academia". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  15. ^ "Fake Conference Advertisement". University of Toronto, Information Technology Services. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  16. ^ "List of WASET Conferences for 2018". WASET Watch. Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  17. ^ a b Weber-Wulff, Debora (2015-04-04). "Brazilian Government recommends mock conference". Copy, Shake, and Paste: A blog about plagiarism and scientific misconduct. Archived from the original on 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  18. ^ Weber, Stefan (2018-07-19). ""Fake Science": Auch Österreichs Wissenschaft vom "WASET-Städtetourismus" betroffen" ["Fake Science": Austria's science community also affected by "WASET city tourism"]. Blog für wissenschaftliche Redlichkeit (in German). Archived from the original on 2019-02-12. Retrieved 2019-02-12.
  19. ^ a b c Tuffani, Mauricio (2015-03-03). "Eventos científicos "caça-níqueis" preocupam cientistas brasileiros" [‘Slot Machines’ Scientific Events Worry Brazilian Scientists]. Folha de S.Paulo (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  20. ^ a b Grove, Jack (2017-10-26). "Predatory conferences 'now outnumber official scholarly events'". Times Higher Education (THE). Archived from the original on 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  21. ^ Kolata, Gina (2017-10-30). "Many Academics Are Eager to Publish in Worthless Journals". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  22. ^ Spears, Tom (2014-10-08). "Science fiction? Why the long-cherished peer-review system is under attack". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  23. ^ Malboeuf, Marie-Claude (2017-09-20). "Fraudes: fausses revues scientifiques, faux congrès" [Fraud: fake scientific journals, fake congresses]. La Presse (Canadian newspaper) (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2018-07-31.
  24. ^ White, Andrew (2016-04-11). "Junk conference warning". University of Queensland, School of Mathematics and Physics, QT Lab. Archived from the original on 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  25. ^ "Azerbaijani "academy" fools a lot of scientists from around the world". Panorama. 2014-06-24. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  26. ^ "waset.org". Whois: Identity for everyone. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  27. ^ a b Kaplan, Sefa (2010-12-12). "Parayı bastıranı profesör yapıyorlar" [He who plunks down money gets made professor]. Hürriyet (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 2018-07-30. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  28. ^ a b Weber-Wulff, Debora (2012-06-17). "Turkish mock conferences". Copy, Shake, and Paste: A blog about plagiarism and scientific misconduct. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  29. ^ "ENFORMATIKA: World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology". Defunct website of Enformatika. 2007-03-29. Archived from the original on 2007-03-29.
  30. ^ Gang, Erman (2016-04-01). "'Bilimsel şarlatanlığa' AKP koruması". SoL (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 2017-12-16. Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  31. ^ "World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology". SCImago Journal Rank. Archived from the original on 2017-07-06. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  32. ^ Bohannon, John (2013-10-04). "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?". Science. 342 (6154): 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 24092725.
  33. ^ Hornung, Peter; Klühspies, Anna; Mader, Fabian; Tillack, Anna (2018-07-19). "Pseudo-Verlage – Eine Bedrohung für die Wissenschaft" [Pseudo-Publishers – A Threat to Science]. Bayerischer Rundfunk (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-07-26. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
  34. ^ "Mainzer Wissenschaftler von weltweitem Skandal betroffen" [Mainz scientists affected by worldwide scandal]. Südwestrundfunk (in German). 2018-07-19. Archived from the original on 2018-08-02. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
  35. ^ Eckert, Svea; Hornung, Peter (2018-07-19). "So einfach wurden wir Wissenschaftler" [This is how easily we became scientists]. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-10-18. Retrieved 2018-08-01.
  36. ^ a b "DEF CON 26 Early Release: Inside the Fake Science Factory!". DEF CON® 26 Hacking Conference. 2018-09-18. Archived from the original on 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  37. ^ DEFCONConference (2018-09-17). "DEF CON 26 - Svea, Suggy, Till - Inside the Fake Science Factory". Youtube. Archived from the original on 2019-09-04. Retrieved 2019-09-04.
  38. ^ Yongjin, Kim (2018-09-11). "The Secret of 'Fake Science' Factory". KCIJ Newstapa. Archived from the original on 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
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