The gray industrial chain behind the title evaluation paper
For many industries, such as university teachers, engineers, doctors and nurses, publishing papers is a "hard leverage" for obtaining professional titles.
Where there is demand, there is a market. On the Internet platform, a large number of intermediaries and sellers have come into sight when searching for keywords such as "papers" and "publishing".
They claim to "provide topic selection, writing, and publication services" and "one-stop time-saving and efficient". It seems that with their "help", it seems very easy and easy to publish articles in regular journals.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that writing and distributing essays has given birth to a complete chain of interests, but the risks behind them are often ignored by people who "take shortcuts".
Due to the eagerness of manuscripts, some people were diverted to various agencies with uneven distribution of good and bad. What's more, even the subsequent employment notices and periodicals were fake.
Take advantage of the victim’s "guilty conscience" mentality
Junior high school students cheated high-educated doctors
Ms. Wang from Jiangyan District, Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, 41 years old this year, is an employee of a local hospital. Because of the job title assessed by her unit, she needs to publish papers in relevant academic journals.
Ms. Wang, who hasn't written for many years, is a little worried. She heard from friends that there are "gunners" on the Internet who specialize in the business of "writing and publishing papers on behalf of," and she was a little tempted.
In May last year, Ms. Wang searched the Internet and found many "businessmen" who "written and published papers on behalf of others".
Later, she chose one of the "institutions" for a simple consultation and added the WeChat account provided by the other party to establish contact.
The other party claims that not only can they distribute papers on their behalf, they can even provide a service for writing papers based on professional needs, and ensure that the papers written on their behalf can be published in the journal.
The other party also sent some past "successful examples" to Ms. Wang, and said that "the company should cooperate with several journals in depth" and reminded not to worry.
After the two parties agreed on the price, Ms. Wang paid the other party a "deposit" of 3,000 yuan through WeChat, and agreed to write the paper, and then discuss the publication after confirmation.
Three months later, Ms. Wang received the paper as scheduled. The content was related to the topic she provided, but the quality was not high and there were no research results. It should be difficult to publish under normal circumstances.
The other party told her that as long as she pays the manuscript fee, she can publish it in a national journal.
Although Ms. Wang was a little suspicious, she turned to the agreed 5,500 yuan.
After the transfer, I waited for several months, but no paper was published.
Realizing that she was deceived, at the end of April this year, Ms. Wang, who was ashamed and annoyed, chose to report to the public security organ under the persuasion of her family.
After receiving the police, the Jiangyan police inquired in detail about the process of being deceived, and collected and verified relevant transfer records and other evidence.
Afterwards, the police arrested 12 suspects including Huang in one fell swoop.
According to Sun Qiao, a police officer handling the case of Jiangyan police, most of the criminals in the criminal gang have junior high school education, and there are only two people in high school education. The "routines" and "shushu" of publishing essays.
The gang involved more than 1,000 cases, and most of the victims involved were doctors and nurses, each of whom was defrauded of about 5,000 to 10,000 yuan.
In addition to the online platform advertisement that caused Ms. Wang to be deceived, Sun Qiao said that there are several staff members in the gang who are responsible for offline "business operations."
They focused their attention on hospitals in various places, photographed the address book of medical staff, and aggregated it into the company system.
After that, other staff in the office fabricated the editorial identity of a certain journal, and sent text messages to doctors and nurses one by one, asking if there were related needs and seeking specific "cooperation."
"It is a shame to write and publish papers on behalf of others. After discovering that they were deceived, they chose to be'silent.' The criminal gangs are very clever. They used this psychology to commit fraud." Sun Qiao said.
"Take a shortcut" for the job title evaluation
Received a fake journal after distributing the paper
Compared to Ms. Wang from Jiangsu who didn't even see a sample publication after spending money, Mr. Zhang from Beijing couldn't tell.
Mr. Zhang is the backbone of a construction company in Beijing. This year he waited for the opportunity to be awarded a middle-level professional title.
As Mr. Zhang was eager to publish papers within the time limit specified in the title selection, he searched the Internet and found a magazine that claimed to be able to distribute core journals on his behalf.
After Mr. Zhang provided his paper, the "magazine editor" told Mr. Zhang that the content of his paper was really not very good, and it might be a bit difficult to publish it, but they can provide Mr. Zhang with paid writing services. .
Thinking that he would have to invest a lot of time and energy in writing another paper, it would still be impossible to pass it without saying the time wasted. So after serious consideration, Mr. Zhang decided to spend money to solve the problem.
After 20 days, Mr. Zhang received the journal.
Looking at the papers he published, he felt that the money was not in vain.
However, when he happily took the published paper to select the title, he was rejected.
"Just said that this magazine is fake, and asked me where I contacted this magazine, and I also wrote a review."
The title was not evaluated, and he was punished by the unit, which made Mr. Zhang very regretful.
The magazine in hand is obviously very formal and clearly printed with the number of the public issue. How could it be fake?
So he immediately contacted the editor who helped him publish the paper. Unexpectedly, the other party changed his previous enthusiasm, and said very strongly that the unit’s disapproval was a matter of the unit and had nothing to do with them. It is impossible to get a refund. After that, he was blacked out.
At this time, Mr. Zhang felt something was wrong and immediately called the police.
The magazine that Mr. Zhang provided to the Beijing Shunyi police is more than a hundred pages thick. The cover and layout look like a professional magazine for the construction industry.
However, the Shunyi police confirmed after investigation that this is a typical case of fraudulently pretending to be a regular magazine. What Mr. Zhang received was a fake magazine, and the editor of the so-called magazine who contacted Mr. Zhang and collected the money was also fake.
The police found that this is a criminal gang that specializes in defrauding people who need to publish papers. The gang members have a clear division of labor and are very cunning. They make full use of the victim’s unwillingness to let others know that he writes and distributes papers on his behalf, and commits crazy crimes. Wanqi.
Investigations show that there are many types of magazines that this group pretends to be. In addition to the construction profession, it also includes many aspects such as medicine and technology.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that a number of people who participated in the 2021 Beijing professional title review reported to the media that after submitting the preliminary review materials, the journal in which they submitted the paper was judged to be a false journal, and their participation in this year’s title review was cancelled. qualifications.
Participants with the same experience have a common feature. They all publish papers by looking for an intermediary or "editor" instead of directly contacting the publishing unit of the journal.
After the intermediary arranged for the article to be published, the participants even got a paper journal with a unified issue number.
They said that they did not expect to encounter a holiday magazine.
China Association for Science and Technology has launched a special rectification
Beijing credited to the integrity archives
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that a special rectification has been launched for the cooperation of journals and "paper intermediaries" to distribute papers indiscriminately.
On November 8, the official website of the China Association for Science and Technology issued the "Notice on Carrying out Special Inspections on the Issues of the Issues of Spamming Papers in the Journals of the China Association for Science and Technology."
According to the notice, the objects of this special inspection are all journals that are in charge of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology and publish papers.
Among them, focus on checking journals with more than 2,000 papers published throughout the year, journals with most papers of no more than 5,000 words or no more than 3 pages in each issue, journals suspected of distributing papers beyond the scope of the review in the past 3 years, and journals. Issues are semi-monthly, quarterly, weekly, and other periodicals with relatively close publication cycles.
The notice also mentions that serious violations of regulations such as renting and selling the pages of periodicals and cooperating with "thesis intermediaries" must be dealt with and corrected in accordance with the law.
For journals that are difficult to sustainably run, and do not have the corresponding publishing and control capabilities, change the sponsoring unit in charge, stop running, and cancel.
On November 10, 2021, the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau issued the "Notice on Maintaining the Integrity Environment for Professional Title Evaluation" on its official website.
The notice stated that applicants who provide false materials, plagiarize others’ works and academic achievements, or adopt other improper means will cancel their declaration qualifications in accordance with relevant regulations and be entered into the "blacklist" for the evaluation of professional titles, and those who obtain professional titles will be revoked and combined. Recorded in the title review integrity archives.
In addition, the notice also stated that Beijing’s professional title evaluation has fully implemented the evaluation system for representative work of achievements.
Applicants can independently select project reports, research reports, technical reports, engineering schemes, design documents, performance reports, patents, monographs, papers and other performance achievements to submit for professional title review.
Applicants are requested not to believe in the false propaganda of the "Holiday Journal", and should pay attention to summarizing and refining the performance results in technology research and development, technology reform, technology application, standard setting, academic research, etc. in their daily work, and summarize them in time, and use them to best reflect Appraisal of the performance results of the competency level.
[Expert suggestion]
"Paper" indicators such as papers do not fully reflect the ability of professional titles
Should add academic transformation achievements or ability assessment
Lawyer Deng Qianqiu from Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm told reporters from Beijing Youth Daily that if a participant does not know that the journal "publishing" his paper is a fake journal, the intermediary has concealed the fact that the journal is fake or falsified that the paper has been published in the journal. According to the above-mentioned truth, according to the relevant judicial interpretation, if the value of the property defrauded by the intermediary reaches 3,000 to 10,000 yuan, it may constitute a crime of fraud in the criminal law.
If the journal where the paper is published is a genuine journal, but the paper is not written by the participant, but written by the intermediary, the intermediary’s behavior is an illegal operation; if the intermediary is an enterprise, the amount of illegal operations reaches 500,000 yuan or illegal income If the amount reaches 100,000 yuan, or if the intermediary is a natural person, the amount of illegal business reaches 50,000 yuan, or the illegal income reaches 10,000 yuan, criminal prosecution shall be imposed on suspicion of illegal business operations.
Shen Teng, a part-time professor and master's supervisor of China University of Political Science and Law, and a lawyer from Beijing Shuaihe Law Firm, told reporters from Beijing Youth Daily that those who participate in the selection of professional titles must "go right and behave well", and honesty is the first.
If the person who sent the essay was written by someone else, it must be suspected of academic fraud and should be included in the "blacklist" of academic dishonesty.
Shen Teng said that the dissertation agency treats generational writing as an industry, which has corrupted the social atmosphere.
But the root cause is that even if this gang is destroyed, other gangs will still appear; if this model is destroyed, it will be transformed into another model.
The reason is that it is determined by the supply and demand market for "paper" review qualifications.
Nowadays, many professional title evaluations are index evaluations, not competency evaluations.
And what is an index evaluation, as long as it meets the "paper" conditions on the appearance, it is not a presentation of ability.
For standardized intermediary agencies, it is an organization familiar with the procedures and data standards for qualification declaration. They are limited to assisting and assisting the standardization of application procedures and the standardization of materials, and entities that cannot participate (writing on behalf of others, paid agency send).
In the aforementioned case, the intermediary party fabricated relevant facts for the purpose of achieving the purpose, and there is no problem in determining it as the crime of fraud.
Shen Teng suggested that "paper" indicators such as essays do not fully reflect a person's professional title ability, and that academic transformation results or ability assessment, or even psychological testing should be added.
Use face-to-face, video or practical methods to conduct substantive verification of the examiners' academic, achievements and abilities at random.
Once fraudulent behavior is discovered, or reported and verified, it will be included in the national academic integrity and credit information sharing platform for restrictive accountability.
Text/Reporter Zhu Jianyong