Session 9 (July 3)

Publication Ethics & Bad Actors

Screenshot of the title and abstract section of the article "What's the Deal with Birds" by Daniel T. Baldassarre. The abstract reads: "Many people wonder: what’s the deal with birds? This is a common query. Birds are pretty weird. I mean, they have feathers. WTF? Most other animals don’t have feathers. To investigate this issue, I looked at some birds. I looked at a woodpecker, a parrot, and a penguin. They were all pretty weird! In conclusion, we may never know the deal with birds, but further study is warranted."

The article “What’s the Deal with Birds?” was accepted for publication in the “journal” Scientific Journal of
Research and Reviews. See the full article.

Topics will include:

  • So-called “predatory” journals
  • Evaluating journals
  • Varieties of researcher malfeasance
  • Retractions, corrections, and withdrawals

Assignments for July 5:

  • Follow Question 8.2 in forum to prepare for class discussion.

Readings for July 5:

Hoffman, S. G., Joyce, K., Alegria, S., Bell, S. E., Cruz, T. M., Noble, S. U., Shestakofsky, B., & Smith-Doerr, L. (2022). Five big ideas about AI. Contexts, 21(3), 8–15. Available via GC library.

United States Copyright Office. (2023, March 16). Copyright registration guidance: Works containing material generated by artificial intelligence.

Day, T. (2023). A preliminary investigation of fake peer-reviewed citations and references generated by ChatGPT. The Professional Geographer.

Waard, A. de. (2023, January 18). Guest post – AI and scholarly publishing: A view from three experts. The Scholarly Kitchen.

Brainard, J. (2023, February 22). As scientists explore AI-written text, journals hammer out policies. Science.