方舟子的Blog

有人说，凑高影响期刊论文篇数的压力很可能会助长学术不端。

英国《自然》463, 142-143 (2010)
记者：Jane Qiu
翻译：clark

在中国一系列引人注目的学术造假案件中，最近的一起更凸显了一个过度强调发表的学术评价体系的问题，批评人士这样说道。上个月，英国的《结晶学报（E）》的编辑一次性撤消了70篇已经发表的晶体结构——编辑们断言这些晶体结构是江西省井冈山大学的研究人员编造出来的。而且以后可能还会有更多的撤消。

对于那些能吸引眼球的发表，中国大学经常给与现金奖励，住房优惠和其他外快；而发表的压力也是与日俱增。比如，武汉大学的一项最新研究估计，诸如找枪手炮制论文等买卖论文与经营非法学术期刊活动仅在2009年市值已达十亿，五倍于2007年的数字。在其他的研究中，来自主要大学和研究机构的被调查研究人员有三分之一承认有过剽窃、篡改、编造数据的行为。

“学术不端已经到了令人不安的程度，”安阿堡的密西根大学研究伦理与诚信项目的负责人Nicholas Steneck说：“这集中体现了中国在争取迅速地提高研究地位，试图成为科学界世界级选手的过程中所面临的挑战。而在中国这样一个巨大的研究体系当中，研究质量自然是良莠不齐的……”

作为对结晶学论文被撤消的回应，两周前井冈山大学开除了论文的两位通讯作者—钟华和刘涛。现在还不清楚他们的共同作者，其中包括来自中国其他研究机构的研究人员，是否会被调查。

这份期刊的编辑说，在测试一款用来标识潜在错误和罕见化学结构（比如，原子间不正常的距离）的软件时，这些论文露出了马脚。这款软件确认了大量在化学上根本说不过去的晶体结构。在进一步的核实表明，编辑说，论文的作者仅仅置换了现存化合物已知结构中一两个原子的位置，就把它们作为新的结构提交了。现在无法联络到钟华和刘涛来听取他们的申诉。

期刊的编辑们正在检查其他已经发表的晶体结构的真实性，包括所有来自井冈山大学的投稿。

在这份期刊过去五年所发表的所有二十万余种晶体结构中，一半来自中国。E卷的三名编辑之一，来自英国阿伯丁大学的化学家William Harrison不愿意讨论正在进行当中的调查，但他说由一个研究团队产生出大量晶体结构并不一定有问题，因为衍射仪一天很容易就可以收集几个数据集。“就投到E卷的论文来说，从中国来的大部分都是测定正确的结构，他们对科学做出了有价值的贡献”，他又说道。

但是，武汉大学的研究表明学术不端行为在很多领域都广泛传播。计算机专家沈阳所领导的小组运用网站分析和实地调查确定了一大批非法出版活动。其中包括枪手代写的文章和凭空捏造的论文，通过贿赂逃避评审以及干脆伪造合法出版的的中国期刊和国际期刊。

研究人员分析了干这些非法营生的最热门的800家网站——他们的点击量一天就能累积到二十一万次，发现每笔交易通常是六百到一万两千元人民币。沈阳说，其中四分之三的需求来自大学和研究机构，“整个出版过程就是一个巨大的产业链”。

出于对这种趋势的担心，中国科技部委托进行了一项针对研究人员的调查。虽然调查结果尚未公开，但有些来源对《自然》透露：超过6000名遍及六家顶级研究机构的被调查者当中大约三分之一的人承认有过剽窃、篡改和编造行为。参与这项调查的清华大学科技与社会研究所所长曾国平说，许多人将这些不端行为的首要原因归结为急功近利的文化。

第二个经常被提及的原因是，在中国学术活动受到官僚的干涉。大多数学术评估，从人员聘用、职称晋升到基金分配，都是由官僚完成的，而他们都不是相关领域的专家，方是民（方舟子）这样解释。方是民是一位曾在美国接受学术训练的生化专家，现在开办一个名为“新语丝”的网站，专门揭露中国的学术不端行为。“由于官僚把持，数论文的数目，而不是评价研究的质量，成了评估的常态，”方是民如是说。

曾国平在清华大学的同事曹南燕，由北京市政府委托也开展了一项相似的调查，调查了来自10所大学和研究机构的2000名研究人员。结果也发现在答复问卷的人中有三分之一承认有过违规的学术不端行为。

在北京大学生命学院院长饶毅这样的批评者看来，缺乏对造假者严厉的制裁措施，即使在引人瞩目的案件当中也付之阙如，是学术欺诈猖獗的原因之一。上海交通大学的一位前院长陈进曾被指控谎称制造出一系列的数字信号处理芯片，但除了被解聘以外没有任何其他后果。同时，卷入这件丑闻中的其他人员也是毫发未损依然如故。许多研究人员对这一事实进行了批评。

饶毅说：“这样令人侧目的丑闻都没有得到应有的处理，那就是发出了一个非常错误的信号。”

Published online 12 January 2010 | Nature  463, 142-143 (2010) | doi:10.1038/463142a

Publish or perish in China

The pressure to rack up publications in high-impact journals could encourage misconduct, some say.

Jane Qiu

The latest in a string of high-profile academic fraud cases in China underscores the problems of an academic-evaluation system that places disproportionate emphasis on publications, critics say. Editors at the UK-based journal Acta Crystallographica Section E last month retracted 70 published crystal structures that they allege are fabrications by researchers at Jinggangshan University in Jiangxi province. Further retractions, the editors say, are likely.

Chinese universities often award cash prizes, housing benefits or other perks on the basis of high-profile publications, and the pressure to publish seems to be growing. A new study from Wuhan University, for instance, estimates that the market for dubious science-publishing activities, such as ghostwriting papers on nonexistent research, was of the order of 1 billion renminbi (US$150 million) in 2009 — five times the amount in 2007. In other studies, one in three researchers surveyed at major universities and research institutions admitted to committing plagiarism, falsification or fabrication of data.

“The extent of the misconduct is disturbing,” says Nicholas Steneck, director of the Research Ethics and Integrity Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “It highlights the challenges China faces as it struggles to rapidly improve the research capacity of a very large system — with significant variations in quality — to be a world-class player in science.”

Two weeks ago, reacting to the retractions of the crystallography papers, Jinggangshang University fired the correspondent authors, Zhong Hua and Liu Tao. It is unclear whether their co-authors, who include researchers from other institutions in China, will also be investigated.

The journal’s editors say that the discrepancies came to light during tests of software designed to flag possible errors and unusual chemical features, such as abnormal distances between atoms. The software identified a large number of crystal structures that didn’t make sense chemically; further checking, the editors say, suggests that the authors simply changed one or more atoms of an existing compound of known structure, then presented that structure as new. Zhong and Liu could not be reached for comment.

Editors at the journal are now checking the authenticity of other published crystal structures, including all submissions from Jinggangshan University.

Half of the 200,000-odd crystal structures published by the journal during the past five years have come from China. William Harrison, a chemist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, who is one of three section editors for the journal, would not discuss the ongoing investigation but says that the generation of large numbers of structures by one group would not necessarily raise questions, because diffractometers can easily collect a couple of data sets a day. “In terms of papers submitted to Acta E, the vast majority coming from China are correctly determined structures, and they make a valuable contribution to science,” he says.

Nevertheless, the Wuhan University study suggests that misconduct could be widespread in many fields. The team, led by computer scientist Shen Yang, used website analyses and onsite investigations to identify a wide range of dubious publishing activities. These include ghostwriting theses and academic papers on fictional research, bypassing peer-review for payment, and forging copies of legitimate Chinese or international journals.

The researchers analysed the most popular 800 websites involved in such activities — which together rack up 210,000 hits a day — and found that the cost of each transaction is typically 600–12,000 renminbi. Three-quarters of the demand comes from universities and institutions, says Shen. “There is a massive production chain for the entire publishing process,” he says.

Concerned by such trends, China’s science ministry commissioned a survey of researchers, the results of which remain under wraps. However, several sources revealed to Nature that roughly one-third of more than 6,000 surveyed across six top institutions admitted to plagiarism, falsification or fabrication. Many blamed the culture of jigong jinli — seeking quick success and short-term gain — as the top reason for such practices, says Zeng Guopin, director of the Institute of Science Technology and Society at Tsinghua University in Beijing who was involved in running the survey.

The second most-cited cause is bureaucratic interference in academic activities in China. Most academic evaluation — from staff employment and job promotion to funding allocation — is carried out by bureaucrats who are not experts in the field in question, says Fang Shimin, a US-trained biochemist who runs a website called ‘New Threads’ that exposes research misconduct in China. “When that happens, counting the number of publications, rather than assessing the quality of research, becomes the norm of evaluation,” he says.

Cao Nanyan, a colleague of Zeng’s at Tsinghua, conducted a similar survey commissioned by the Beijing municipality, which surveyed 2,000 researchers from 10 universities and research institutions. It, too, found that roughly one-third of respondents admitted to illegitimate practices.

To critics such as Rao Yi, dean of the life-science school at Peking University in Beijing, the lack of severe sanctions for fraudsters, even in high-profile cases, also contributes to rampant academic fraud. Many researchers criticize the fact that Chen Jin, a former researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who is accused of falsely claiming to have developed a series of digital signal-processing chips, was fired with no other repercussions. Meanwhile, others involved in the scandal have gone unpunished.

“You send out a very wrong signal when such high-profile cases are not dealt with properly,” says Rao.