What is it? An email by a whistleblower has accused a scientist named Gunasekaran Manogaran of being an instrumental part of a research paper publication scam and tarnishing the reputation of eminent scientific publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis and Wiley, Undark reported.
The writer of the email has alleged that the scam targets a specific type of publication called ‘special editions’, where a particular issue of a scientific journal focuses on a single theme or topic. These self-contained editions are not part of the journal’s regular publishing schedule. Typically, special issues have been used to target a particular topic or explore different avenues of existing research. They have also been beneficial to publishers as a source of revenue as researchers are highly charged to get their papers published in these open-access issues.
Special issues are typically managed by ‘guest editors’ who are not direct employees of the publishers. Most of the time, they are approached by the editors of the journal to curate the special editions. Researchers can also propose a topic for a special edition to the publisher.
