All Answers: [pakgrid] Fake Journals and Plagiarism in Pakistan. By Q. Isa Daudpota

Humayun Zafar

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From: Isa Daudpota

Appeared in Dawn under a different title - see url below.
Circulation welcome
Fake Journals and Plagiarism in Pakistan

Q. Isa Daudpota

For me it all began with false eye-lashes! Growing up in the 1960s I could not fathom why actresses with plastic insertions appeared attractive to their fans. In the late 1980s I discovered the equally disgusting fake colored nails on Americans, which were, an office mate explained, off the shelf and not obtained through careful tending of the cuticles. Returning to academia in Pakistan in the first half of the last decade, I discovered how ex-pats and other Pakistanis were applying and getting jobs in our institutions using fake degrees from fake universities – here and abroad -- using fake publications.

Nearly eight years to this date I informed Dr Atta-ur-Rahman of a fake journals publishing racket in Faisalabad, which needed to be squashed by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the law agencies, failing which, I warned, it would grow and entice academics to take the short-cut to promotion and privileges. I also highlighted the damaging role of sub-standard universities in our midst, which had received Charter. Unfortunately, the advice was not heeded by the HEC. As a result, we have parliamentarians with fake degrees hoodwinking the HEC and the Election Commission for over two years about their degrees. Sadly, the Supreme Court has also failed to take up an old petition by members of the civil society outlining a simple degrees verification process that could be completed in a few weeks.

The issues of plagiarism, fake degrees, fake and substandard universities and dishonest politicians are intimately linked. A common response to this multi-headed hydra of a problem is despair. Wait until society reforms itself, some say. Proponents of this approach would like society to attack seemingly far more important issues, the solution of which would make such 'minor' issues (the concern of this article) disappear. The wiser approach is to be holistic in ones analysis yet split the problem into doable parts and attack each swiftly. This latter approach is how the HEC ought to tackle the issue. Failing to do so will make the few centers of excellence and genuine researchers here viewed with suspicion internationally, and further dampen their morale.

A week-long intensive research led to findings of large-scale use of fake journals. These are approved by the HEC and appear on its site in the resumes of its certified PhD supervisors. The HEC Chairman, Dr Javaid Laghari, and several holders of the HEC Distinguished National Professorships have been notified of this.

The documents provided to the HEC are now available to anyone with access to the web at (click on the address): www.tinyurl.com/c9fk93c . Copies can be read/downloaded from this webpage or emailed to the reader on sending me email – see address below.

My research and the follow-up letter to HEC was prompted by the encouraging news report titled, "Laghari says HEC believes in zero-tolerance policy with regard to plagiarism" which went on to say, "Dr Laghari … said that the HEC believed in a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism in the theses of teachers and that if any university was found favoring plagiarists, the HEC would take stern action against it."

The other spur to this effort was the unsolicited bulk mail that I received advertising patently fake journals. On investigating their claims I found a large number of Pakistani academics associated with them as editors and contributors. One such person, in addition to being on the editorial board of such a family of journals, had also contributed an article to them -- this article was part of this person's application for promotion to a professorship in Pakistan's premier public university. The HEC approved this ascension earlier this year.

Becoming suspicious of these editorial boards, I checked the names of four professors from prestigious Western universities whose names appeared on these sites, including two from Cambridge, England, and the University of Maryland (UMD). They were both horrified by this revelation and the UMD professor got her university's attorney to get the offending website removed from the net. The others have been requested to do similarly. But surely this is what one would like our HEC to do too.

One of the editors on the blanked-out site may have little to worry though. He is on the board of many such journals, and despite working for a university with a dubious reputation following a PhD from an equally poor university, published 11 papers in 2010, and in the first half of 2011 had 9 'foreign' publications, in such fake journals. [The HEC website lists them as 'recognized'.] Courtesy of his many papers, he has managed many foreign junkets, in fact 13 in the past 5 years. Most amusing is his attendance at a workshop in Lahore on "Research Ethics and Anti-Plagiarism Strategy"! I wouldn't be surprised if the HEC footed the bill for it!

One could continue offering other such anecdotal evidence of large-scale fraud, but I return to the warning I gave to the past HEC chairman in 2003, which has now been vindicated by articles by Jeffrey Beall of Colorado University at Denver. He has shown how the racket that began in Faisalabad has proliferated. It now has offices in the capital, as my investigations show. Beall's article is available at the web-address above.

Without a doubt the quality assurance program of the HEC has failed dismally. There is an urgent need for an internal and external review followed by the institution of a robust system that maintains transparency and restores the integrity of research publications and higher education in Pakistan. One hopes that such a change will not be relegated to endless committees. The treatment is known; it is time for action.

The article appeared in Dawn as Scourge of fake journals - Click to access.

Comments after reading the evidence provided through the URL in the article are welcome. Please click on the 27 URLs within the main 10-page note to the Chairman HEC (which is part of the evidence) prior to writing to me. Thanks.

Isa Daudpota
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At a time when we're having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud. ~David Cameron
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