Scientific Publisher Springer To Pull Computer-Generated Research Papers - Science News - redOrbit

" ... On Thursday, scientific journal publisher Springer announced that it would be removing 16 fake research papers from its archives after learning that they were essentially computer-generated nonsense. The firm said that they were tipped off by Dr. Cyril Labbé, a French researcher who published research on how to detect computer-generated papers last January in the journal Scientometrics. According to AFP reporters Richard Ingham and Laurent Banguet, the fraudulent papers were created using SCIgen, a free program used to create pseudo-academic research. They were then submitted to computer science and engineering conferences and then printed in specialized, subscription-only publications ... Springer’s disclosure highlights a growing problem in the scientific publishing industry. Dr. Labbé’s work uncovered a total of 120 computer-generated papers that had been published by respected institutions in the US, Germany and China, Lewis explained. Over 100 of those papers were published in by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), The Guardian noted.  SCIgen was originally developed by MIT graduate students Jeremy Stribling, Dan Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn in 2005. The trio wanted to expose how scientific contests would accept any type of academic papers so long as the authors were willing to pay the registration fees, the Guardian said ..."