One year later, bioinformatics journal with unclear leadership yet to retract plagiarized article

On Aug. 17, 2022, Nicki Tiffin received a notification that she had published a new study. The problem? She had never submitted an article to the journal in which the paper appeared. 

A year later, despite efforts by Tiffin and others, the journal has not responded to retraction requests, and the article remains online. Further investigation by Retraction Watch has revealed other dysfunction at the journal, including falsely representing its editors and a schism from its founders and original sponsor. 

The article, “Triumphs and improvement of Computational Bioinformatics in South Africa,” was published in June 2022 in the European Journal of Biomedical Informatics (EJBI).

Tiffin, a professor at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape, discovered that the new paper was a plagiarized version of an article she had published in 2016. That paper, “The Development of Computational Biology in South Africa: Successes Achieved and Lessons Learnt,” appeared in the journal PLOS Computational Biology and has been cited 13 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. 

In 2016, Tiffin was a professor at the University of Cape Town. Although she had no role in publishing the EJBI article, it lists her name as the sole author of the paper, as well as her University of Cape Town affiliation.

For over a year, Tiffin, editors at PLOS, and Paula Saner, the research integrity manager at the University of Cape Town, have been trying to get EJBI to retract the plagiarized article, with no success. 

In an email to Retraction Watch, Saner described the steps she had taken, all fruitless: 

I… went about writing to the EJBI asking them to retract the article/correct the publication record. I wrote to the website domain hosts to notify them of the fraudulent publication, requesting that they remove the website and I wrote to stop predatory journals to ask them to add the EJBI to their list. 

In addition, Saner said she contacted the university’s internal cybersecurity team, who weren’t able to do anything, as well as PLOS. 

By March 2023, the author name and affiliation on the paper had been changed to “Nicki R Adolf, Kyushu University.” Saner said PLOS agreed to reach out to Kyushu University in Japan, which has no record of a person named Nicki R Adolf having worked there. Since the University of Cape Town affiliation had been removed, Saner said she left the issue to PLOS and others.

But in early September, Tiffin noticed that her name and affiliation reappeared on the PDF of the article. 

Renee Hoch, managing editor of the PLOS Publications Ethics Team, told Retraction Watch that practices like the ones employed by EJBI are a “substantial threat to researchers and the integrity of the published record.” Journals and authors have little recourse if the publisher of the concerning article doesn’t respond or act according to standards such as those set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 

Regarding Tiffin’s predicament, she said:

According to COPE guidance, in cases of dual publication the first journal may issue a notice of redundant publication and the journal(s) who publish subsequently should retract the redundant article(s). PLOS has not issued a public notice in this case: we do not have any concerns about the PLOS Computational Biology article and would not want a public notice to cast a negative light on the PLOS article or its authors. 

Hoch said the PLOS did attempt to contact EJBI about the article, but that it has not responded or retracted the duplicate article.

In an email to Retraction Watch, Tiffin described discovering the plagiarized paper as “quite a surprise.” She said: 

It has been quite hard to understand what the journal gains from this kind of fraud, and it seems most likely that they are attempting to pad out their content with known researchers claimed as authors, to appear more like a bona fide journal.

Tiffin said that although she had absolutely no involvement in publishing the paper, its publication is damaging to her reputation as a researcher and the reputation of the University of Cape Town. 

She also noted how unusual and unnerving it is that an obviously fraudulent article like this could stay published for so long, despite repeated efforts by her, Saner, and PLOS. She said: 

It is also disturbing that the journal has not cleaned up properly despite the challenge from the University of Cape Town, and have so blatantly simply altered the fictional author details provided with the paper. They have not taken the fraudulent material offline. This means that they intend to continue with these kind of practices, and this should not be allowed to continue unchecked. It is, however, quite difficult to find a route to ensure this fraud is halted – as Paula has demonstrated through her multiple and very determined efforts to have the fraudulent article taken down.

The EJBI was previously the official journal of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI), but Saner noted that the organization withdrew that claim in 2020 because of “completely inappropriate behaviour for a scientific journal and the lack of quality assurance.”

At that time, EJBI had not removed its claim to be an EFMI journal from its website, “despite repeated requests,” according to EFMI’s statement, and the association was “preparing legal action.” EJBI’s website no longer refers to EFMI. 

The website lists three editors in chief: Mauro Giacomini of the University of Genoa in Italy, Izet Masic of the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bernd Blobel of the University of Regensburg in Germany. 

However, when contacted by Retraction Watch, Giacomini said all three editors had resigned from the journal at the same time the EFMI withdrew its support, and elaborated about why. Giacomini said: 

The [EJBI] has had a great history, starting from the founding [by our] colleague Jana Zvárová. Shortly before her death, Jana sold the magazine to its current ownership. Upon Jana’s death (2017), in her memory and in agreement with the European Federation for Medical Informatics, Izet Mesic, Bernd Blobel and I took over the title of Editor-in-Chief of the same journal. Until 2019, we tried to manage this journal with the normal rules of the scientific world, but we noticed serious actions against these rules by the owners. For this reason, after the EJBI pHealth 2019 Special Issue, EFMI withdrew its endorsement of the journal and at the same time the three of us resigned from the role of Editor-in-Chief. We have written to the magazine several times to remove our names from the site but have received no response.

Blobel, who helped launch the journal, said it was originally a “home-made” publication produced at Charles University in Prague. When Zvárová’s health got worse, she decided to move the journal to the UK, he said. Giacomini added: 

For years Jana has carried on the journal in a personal way and with great dedication. When the registration mechanism began with the various international bodies (Scopus, Pubmed, Web of Science, … ) many persons suggested that Jana find a suitable publishing house that could bring EJBI into these accredited registers. I didn’t follow the negotiations, I think none of us followed them in detail, but I believe that these people deceived Jana first, certainly promising to work for the registration of EJBI, which was never done.

It is unclear who, if anyone, is currently serving as editor in chief of the journal, or what entity publishes it. Though Blobel said he originally communicated with colleagues in the UK, the journal’s website lists an address in Brussels, Belgium. 

EJBI staff did not respond to an email from Retraction Watch. A message sent to an email address associated with a LinkedIn profile for DJ Uppari, who Blobel said was previously a managing editor for EJBI, also yielded no response. 

We also emailed several editors and associate editors listed on the journal’s website. Yasser Mohammed Hassanain Elsayed, a doctor and researcher with the Egyptian Ministry of Health, said he was an editor for the journal but had no knowledge of the article in question. 

Two others expressed confusion that they were listed as associate editors. Emmanuel Ifeanyi Obeago, who is currently a senior lecturer at Kampala International University in Uganda, said he didn’t “know when my name was listed among the associate [editors].” Diego Mauricio López Gutierrez, a researcher at the University of Cauca in Colombia, said he was invited to serve as an associate editor and agreed, but never heard from the journal after that.

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