Tag Archive for: because

Academic Journals In Russia Retract Over 800 Papers Because Of Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism And ‘Gift Authorship’

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Academic publishing hardly covers itself in glory, as Techdirt has reported over the years. It takes advantage of researchers’ belief that they need to publish in so-called “high impact” titles for the sake of their careers, in order to pay nothing for the material they provide. Since articles are reviewed by other academics — for free — profit margins are extremely good: around 30-40%. In order to retain these unusually high levels, the industry does everything in its power to undermine and subvert cheaper alternatives like open access, and often takes a heavy-handed approach to the enforcement of “its” copyright — even against the original author. Given this dismal industry background, it will come as no surprise to learn from Science magazine that Russian academic publishing has its own problems, fueled by the bad behavior of authors:

Academic journals in Russia are retracting more than 800 papers following a probe into unethical publication practices by a commission appointed by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The moves come in the wake of several other queries suggesting the vast Russian scientific literature is riddled with plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and so-called gift authorship, in which academics become a co-author without having contributed any work.

The article mentions the findings of Antiplagiat, a plagiarism detection company. Antiplagiat looked at over four million academic articles published in the Russian language, and found that more than 70,000 were published at least twice. Some were reused 17 times. That’s an impressively efficient re-cycling of material once it has been written, and saves people the bother of writing new papers, while racking up citations that look good on a CV.

The practice of what is known as “gift authorship” is arguably even more convenient for lazy academics. It involves selling slots on papers already written by other authors that have been accepted by a journal. No work or connection with the research is required. Instead, a site like 123mi.ru acts as a matchmaker between authors willing to sell slots on their articles, and those willing to pay for them. Prices range from around $ 500 to $ 3000 per author slot, depending on the subject matter and the journal — although the latter is only revealed after the slot has been paid for. Some articles allow up to five authors slots to be bought in this way.

Academic publishing in Russia clearly has some serious problems, which undermine its value as a measure of scholarly achievement. Sadly, the same could be said about academic publishing in the West, albeit for different reasons.

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8 mobile apps that protect your phone’s privacy, because no, you’re not doing enough – CNET

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8 mobile apps that protect your phone’s privacy, because no, you’re not doing enough  CNET
“mobile security news” – read more

US Courts Rep Ignores Everything About The Internet, Says PACER Access Can Never Be Free Because It Costs Money To Operate

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Open access to court documents is something we still don’t have, thanks to PACER. The creation of PACER was supposed to increase public access, but the government erected a paywall between the public and the documents. To make things worse, the PACER’s front end is an antiquated nightmare. The system isn’t consolidated, so people seeking documents need to know exactly where it was filed before they can even start paying $ 0.10/page for unhelpful search results.

No one who uses PACER likes it. But it’s the government’s monopoly, so everyone who uses PACER has to use PACER because there is no alternative. The US Court system rakes in $ 150-200 million a year in fees, but hardly any of that money is being put towards fixing a system that only barely works and does so in the most begrudging way possible. Lawsuits have been filed and legislation proposed that would give the public free access to court documents, but so far, nothing has changed. PACER is still expensive. And it still sucks.

The sad state of PACER was discussed during a recent Congressional hearing. And it was defended in the worst way possible by the Judicial Conference’s speaker.

Judge Audrey Fleissig of the U.S. District court for the Eastern District of Missouri also said in testimony for the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, IP, and the internet that shifting costs away from users without another funding plan would burden courts with new costs.

“Our case management and public access systems can never be free because they require over $ 100 million per year just to operate,” Fleissig said. “That money must come from somewhere.”

Everything about Fleissig’s statement is ridiculous.

First and foremost, just because something costs money to operate doesn’t mean it can’t be free. To use a government example, interstate highways are free to use, yet they cost billions to construct and maintain. ($ 96 billion in 2014 alone.) The money does come from “somewhere,” as Fleissig correctly notes. It’s called taxes. The thing about PACER is its funded by both tax dollars and fees. The documents people pay to access are created with tax dollars that pay judges, clerks, and every other government employee involved in creating, processing, and posting documents citizens are then expected to pay $ 0.10/page to download.

Stepping outside the government, there are countless examples of free services that cost money to run, like Google’s search engine… or the numerous browser options people use to run Google searches. Every search engine (and I’m including Bing here) runs better than PACER’s internal search engine. And none of those charge users $ 0.10/page for search results. And then there’s email, cloud storage, social media platforms, web-based apps, job-hunting services, classified ad sites, blogging platforms, mobile games, YouTube… a whole internet full of free services that cost money to create and support — all at no cost to the user.

But that’s only part of the ridiculousness. Insisting that it takes $ 100 million to run PACER is bogus. The US Courts system may spend $ 100 million doing it but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done more efficiently for less money. A bureaucracy claiming it spends every cent of its budget doing something shouldn’t be taken as evidence said thing actually requires that much funding to accomplish. Government budgets are things to be spent, not areas of concern where less-costly options might be explored. The process does not lend itself to efficiency since the only thing that accomplishes is less money being appropriated in the next fiscal year.

While there are the salaries of support staff to consider, the bulk of the claimed expense is processing and hosting of PDFs and digital court dockets. The internet is built for this kind of thing and there are any number of options that would reduce costs and increase user-friendliness… all while giving away PDFs and docket listings for free. The system doesn’t necessarily need to be privatized, but perhaps it should be outsourced to vendors that specialize in all the problems PACER has failed to solve for nearly two decades.

And here’s another partial solution — one inadvertently stumbled upon by the US Courts itself:

Approximately “87 percent of all PACER revenue is attributable to just 2 percent of users—large financial institutions and major commercial enterprises that aggregate massive amounts of data for analysis and resale,” the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said.

Well, if that’s the case, the largest users can subsidize everyone else. Set a monthly cap of 5,000 pages and let those who need more pay for unlimited access. It seems like the top 5% of users could easily guarantee free access for everyone. And if anyone else wants “value-added” access to the court document system (maybe with some sort of fire hose feed), they can pay for it. Those that just want to find relevant case documents can still muddle their way through PACER’s broken system to find them, all without having to pay the government for documents they still haven’t managed to find yet.

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Lawsuit: School Strip-Searched An 8-Year-Old Because Someone Found Feces On A Bathroom Floor

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Here’s what we’re strip-searching elementary school students for these days: the existence of feces on a school bathroom floor. (h/t Scott Greenfield)

In a lawsuit, a family claims an Edina elementary school strip-searched their son after they suspected him of having an accident in the bathroom.

Attorneys say the search was ultimately traumatic for the boy who has suffered mental and emotional distress.

“This situation is certainly bizarre; it’s unusual and perhaps unique,” said attorney Marshall Tanick, who represents the young boy and his mother.

Having discovered diarrhea on the bathroom floor, school administrators decided to do something no school administrator should do: they pulled the 8-year-old child (“W.B.” in the lawsuit) into the office, stripped him down, and “searched his naked rectal area” for evidence of floor-pooping.

That this was an elementary school makes this an even more egregious violation of the then-second grader’s body. Sometimes accidents happen. Looking for “suspects” is a stupid response to the inevitable. Deciding an 8-year-old should be strip-searched and examined in an attempt to link him to the discovery of feces on a bathroom floor is insane.

Hence the lawsuit [PDF]. The lawsuit alleges this search was performed without notifying W.B.’s parents and in direct contradiction of school policies, which only allow such extreme measures to be taken in situations involving “imminent danger” or an “emergency health situation.” Obviously, nothing here qualifies as either of those, no matter how broadly you choose to interpret those terms.

The lawsuit also alleges school policy requires parental notification if such a search is going to occur. That didn’t happen here. On top of that, the school has refused to turn over a copy of the incident report to the parents or their legal rep.

The lawsuit calls this what it is: assault. That’s one of the six violations alleged in the lawsuit, along with battery, intentional infliction of mental and emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and the violation of Minnesota’s Data Practices Act, which is tied to the school’s ongoing refusal to part with its incident report.

The statement from the school district is understandably vague, considering it’s being sued and the victim is a minor. But it’s still going on the defensive, attempting to portray the strip search and rectal examination of an 8-year-old student as something everyone would see as reasonable if only they had all the details.

District staff acted to support this student, and it is unfortunate that this matter has progressed to this point based on significant misunderstandings of the District’s actions. District staff at all times has the best interests of its students as their primary focus and goal, and the District remains committed to providing the best possible education and environment for its students.

It’s hard to misconstrue being ordered to remove your pants so school staff can check your rectal area, but here we are, waiting for that very assertion to be litigated. While it’s likely true most of the district staff do have the “best interests of their students” in mind “at all times,” there will always be those who think disproportionate responses are the best responses. Some accidents just need to be punished, and as harshly as possible. It’s happened far too many times for it to be unimaginable, even if the Edina School District would prefer us to believe otherwise.

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