A collaborative effort by academic publishers has resulted in the development of a powerful tool aimed at addressing one of the major threats to research integrity: paper mills. Taylor & Francis, along with several other scholarly publishers, has lent support to STM's newly launched Paper Mill Detection Tool, designed to identify potential misconduct in journal manuscripts.
Paper mills, as defined by STM (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers) and the Committee on Publication Ethics, refer to the practice wherein fabricated manuscripts are submitted to journals for a fee on behalf of researchers, with the intention of securing easy publication or offering authorship for sale. These paper mill articles not only introduce integrity concerns, such as duplicate submission and image manipulation, but also jeopardize the credibility of authentic research published alongside them, undermining trust in the scholarly record.
With paper mills becoming increasingly sophisticated and prevalent, it is crucial to identify certain characteristics that may indicate the presence of such fraudulent articles. The Paper Mill Detection Tool utilizes a combination of internally-developed and third-party technologies, along with shared intelligence and data, to detect these indicators and flag submissions that warrant further investigation and potential action.
The MVP (minimum viable product) of the Paper Mill Detection Tool is part of STM's Integrity Hub, a collective initiative by academic publishers dedicated to preserving research integrity. The Hub takes a comprehensive approach to identifying manuscripts that violate research integrity by leveraging shared data, experiences, and technology.
Taylor & Francis has actively participated in STM's Integrity Hub project, as well as its paper mills and image manipulation working groups. The company has tested earlier prototypes of the Paper Mill Detection Tool and holds high expectations for the impact of integrating the MVP and future iterations into its operational procedures.
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