Elsevier journals are retracting eight studies after learning that one of the authors on the papers was “fictitious” – as in a similar case we reported on recently.
The ostensible author, Toshiyuki Bangi, was listed as affiliated with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The eight studies, which were cited a collective 47 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, were published in three different journals — Construction and Building Materials, the Journal of Building Engineering, and Case Studies in Construction Materials.
The retraction notice is the same for each paper, and states:
Following a complaint made by the Office of Research Integrity of the National Technical University (NTU) of Singapore, an investigation determined that the co-author “Toshiyuki Bangi” is fictitious; the name and affiliation were added to the paper by the corresponding author. NTU is in no way involved in this deception and the fictitious author was assigned a hotmail.com email address.
Manipulation of authorship is a serious violation of publication ethics that distorts the research record and draws all aspects of the work into question.
The corresponding author has admitted the deceit and understands the need for retraction.
The corresponding author for all of the papers is Cong Zhang, a researcher in the School of Environmental and Civil Engineering at Jiangnan University in China. He did not respond to an email from Retraction Watch.
The practice of listing “gift” or “honorary” authors, who have made little or no notable contribution to a paper, is sometimes an attempt to boost the reputation or prestige of research. Retraction Watch recently reported on another case where this included inventing the entire identity of a researcher at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Roderick Wayland Bates, NTU’s research integrity officer and an associate professor of chemistry, chemical engineering, and biotechnology at the institution, said:
I understand that this fictitious author was added to the paper as they thought that having an author from a well known University would improve the paper’s chances in the review process. As a reviewer myself, I am not influenced by addresses, but some people might be. The review system, despite its limitations, is the process that ensures the quality of academic publications. That is why it has to be protected from attempted abuse such as this.
Bates said he found out about the retraction from the university library, which heard about Bangi from a person in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where Bangi supposedly worked. Bates said he isn’t sure how people think they can get away with adding fictional authors, since that person’s supposed colleagues are bound to notice and ask who the person is.
In addition to not having a university email, no profile for Bangi appears in NTU’s faculty directory. Attempts by Retraction Watch to contact Bangi at his listed email address yielded no response.
A spokesperson for Elsevier said:
As indicated within the Retraction Notice, the paper was retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) following a complaint received on 1 March 2023. The EIC wrote to the corresponding author and on the 3 March 2023, the author acknowledged the need for retraction.
Mike C. Forde, the Editor-in-Chief of Construction and Building Materials, said:
I can confirm that this paper was retracted by Construction and Building Materials with a notice explaining why the paper was retracted.
The Editors-in-Chief of the other two journals did not respond to an email from Retraction Watch.
Though Elsevier, as well as the publishing arm of the American Society of Civil Engineers, have retracted all articles published in their journals that included Bangi’s name, other journals with papers that list Bangi as an author remain unmarked — for instance, “Influence of Distribution Modulus on the Compressive Strength of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete with Coarse Aggregate (UHPC-CA) in the journal Advances in Civil Engineering.
The papers that were retracted are:
- “Investigation of SAP content on the shrinkage and tensile properties of ultra-high performance concrete,” Construction and Building Materials, July 2022
- “Design approach, mechanical properties and cost-performance evaluation of ultra-high performance engineered cementitious composite (UHP-ECC): A review,” Construction and Building Materials, May 2022
- “Shrinkage and tensile properties of ultra-high-performance engineered cementitious composites (UHP-ECC) containing superabsorbent polymers (SAP) and united expansion agent (UEA),” Construction and Building Materials, May 2022
- “Mechanical properties, durability and application of ultra-high-performance concrete containing coarse aggregate (UHPC-CA): A review,” Construction and Building Materials, April 2022
- “Influence of eco-friendly fine aggregate on macroscopic properties, microstructure and durability of ultra-high performance concrete: A review,” Journal of Building Engineering, December 2022
- “Evaluation of pseudo-strain hardening behavior of hybrid fiber reinforced ultra-high performance concrete containing coarse aggregates by using micromechanical principles,” Journal of Building Engineering, September 2022
- “Effect of CaCO3 whiskers on tensile properties of ultra-high-performance engineered cementitious composites,” Journal of Building Engineering, June 2022
- “Experimental study and theoretical modeling for the flexural property of multi-scale hybrid fiber reinforced SHCC,” Case Studies in Construction Materials, April 2022
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The fictive nature of Toshiyuki Bangi was highlighted by indefatigable PubPeer contributor Rhipidura albiventris, who noted Bangi as the common element of the eight Elsevier retractions, i.e. here.
“I understand that this fictitious author was added to the paper as they thought that having an author from a well known University would improve the paper’s chances in the review process. ”
And now this “well known” but unnamed University will be linked to these eight retractions despite having done nothing wrong. I wonder if this unnamed but well know University has any recourse in the matter to make it clear they didn’t have anything to do with this fraudulent act.
“The review system, despite its limitations, is the process that ensures the quality of academic publications”
Seems to me that if a researcher can stick a totally fictitious author onto eight papers and not have it detected until well after publication of those papers that the “review system” is totally borked and can no longer ensure the quality of academic publications. It cannot even ensure that the authors listed on the paper actually exist.
I don’t think reviewers consider this to be their job. I have certainly never been asked to assess whether the authors of a paper I am reviewing are real. In the case of double-blind review I won’t even know who they are.
A diligent journal will contact all authors. Beyond that it’s hard to see what to do. Fictional authors appear to be uncommon, and putting a lot of work into validating that every author exists would further bog down submission times for relatively little gain.
Tens of thousands of man hours went into work that now needs to have a disclaimer that a cited source has been retracted. The publishers need to add a verification of identity step to their submission process otherwise there’s no functional difference between a top journal and blogspot except the journal is more expensive.
Publishers will end up now wasting time and resources trying to verify authors (eg through ORCID). Capitalism is not only killing the planet it’s taking science down with it too.
“Journal of Building Engineering” has been run by Jorge de Brito, until fairly recently. There is a post dedicated to him on this site.
Meanwhile, “Construction and Building Materials” is where a big chunk of de Brito’s shenanigans happened.
https://retractionwatch.com/2022/03/07/engineers-research-starts-to-look-shaky-as-retractions-mount/
Adding this fictitious foreign author may not be solely for gaming the review process, but also to boost the university rankings by increasing the number of international collaborations
Mainland China has been the source of innumerable frauds & espionage: Corporate, academic, financial etc..
The end game goal i can only speculate, but i think that it is intended to fuel nationalistic fervor and enable future fraud efforts.
Identity verification of the persons submitting research should absolutely be a step in the process, not just ensuring they are real but gave consent and are actively partipating in the submission process.
Maybe, just maybe, a reasonable step would be paying reviewers? But then, I understand that some academics who are paid for marking do not check whether references in student work are fictional or not. I have talked to quite a few who said that doing so would take too long. This means students who are used to receiving firsts for their work are flabbergasted when they encounter a crazy professor who not only skimreads their paper, but actually checks their sources and tells them they don’t exist and hence fails the paper as it pretends to be academic, referenced work. Maybe just maybe that malpractice (of NOT checking sources, including authors) affects peer review as well?
The primary role of a reviewer is to determine whether something is interesting, rather than doing, say, copy editing, typesetting, marketing, or police work. That’s why they are, traditionally, unpaid experts, with relevant expertise.
Profit margins in commercial publishing are very high and there is no lack of resources to pay qualified staff to do whatever else needs doing, should they so choose. But one reason profit margins are so high is that the publishers no longer provide most of the traditional services once associated with the trade, other than marketing.
When a major commercial publisher will happily pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a collection of journals notorious for their indifference to quality, it’s a bit pointless to discuss the ways reviewers might run interference for them. We will get whatever level of fraud the publishers view as consistent with maintaining their profit margins. They have in some cases dismissed editorial boards who object to such practices.
Meanwhile, I value the thumb on the pulse of a troubled industry provided by this site. We are discussing symptoms here, not cures.