The Rise of Reverse Plagiarism in Research

Generally, when discussing plagiarism, we discuss someone trying to take credit for work they did not do.

Whether a student submitting an AI paper, an author adding themselves to a paper they didn’t contribute to or a photographer claiming others’ work in their portfolio, plagiarism is usually about taking credit when it’s not earned.

However, a pair of stories on Retraction Watch have pointed to the opposite. Adding someone to a paper against their will.

This raises many difficult questions. Why would someone add authors to a paper without their consent? What harm does it cause? How can we prevent it in the future?

The answers to those questions aren’t simple and deal with broader challenges facing research integrity in 2024.

Two Stories, One Problem

The first story began in April and involves Kumba Digdowiseiso, a now-former economics and business faculty dean at Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, Indonesia.

A Malaysian researcher had searched for his name in Google Scholar and noticed that his name and others from their department were listed alongside Digdowiseiso in a series of papers. At least 24 people had been added to his papers without their consent.

According to the researchers, Digdowiseiso had visited their school but never met with the faculty or engaged with them in any way.

At first, it appeared that Digdowiseiso would not be disciplined as the school concluded the matter was a “personal issue.” However, after additional pressure, Digdowiseiso resigned from his post, was barred from teaching and was told to apologize to the impacted researchers.

It is unclear if he has issued an apology.

The second story begins similarly. Steffen Barra, a German researcher in forensic psychiatry, searched for his name on Google. However, he found his name attached to a paper he didn’t recognize.

Worse still, the paper was heavily plagiarized. Fearing that he would be blamed for the plagiarism, he wrote the publisher to request his name be removed. Though the publisher promised to comply, as of this writing, his author page is still online, and his name is still connected to the paper.

The journal is listed as a “predatory publisher,” and it is widely believed to be a fake journal. Such journals are commonly used to inflate publication counts artificially.

But this raises a difficult question: Why would anyone do this? Why would anyone add an author to a paper without their consent?

There are actually several possible reasons why.

Why Commit Reverse Plagiarism?

At first blush, the practice doesn’t make much sense. Why add someone to a paper and risk diluting the authorship? However, there are several reasons for doing it, all of which point to other research integrity issues.

First and most obvious, adding well-known authors to a paper can boost its profile and that of its journal. This is likely what happened in Barra’s case. It’s an attempt to use his name to give the paper and the journal more legitimacy.

Simply put, people are more trusting of papers with well-known authors and are less likely to question papers with them. They’re also more likely to cite them in future work.

However, the second reason is less clear. It’s to hide the original integrity issue.

To pull an example from outside academia, there are many sites that will let you buy views on YouTube. After getting so many fake views, the hope is that YouTube will begin recommending your video more, resulting in organic views.

However, the bots that provide the fake views don’t just hit the videos they are paid to promote. Instead, they hit mostly legitimate videos with only a few paid ones thrown in.

This makes it harder for YouTube to spot the scam. Since most of the views were to legitimate videos, the relatively few spammy ones are harder to spot.

That is very similar here. Since many, if not most, of the listed authors are legitimate researchers, the authors who paid for the publication can slip through more easily. This makes it more difficult to detect the malfeasance.

Between raising the paper’s profile and covering their tracks, it is easy to see why someone is trying to game academic publishing by adding authors without their consent.

What Can Be Done About It?

Clearly, the goal of reverse plagiarism is to either obfuscate or increase the impact of other ethical issues. However, the big question is, what can anyone do about it?

The answer is not much.

The problem is straightforward: most journals don’t request proof of authorship or affiliation. It’s easy to add an author to a paper, and as long as it seems plausible, it’s unlikely to be challenged. This is true even if the author doesn’t exist.

However, that only looks at legitimate journals. Predatory or fake journals obviously won’t care. They’re already in the business of publishing fake papers to boost publication counts. They’re not going to care at all if an author didn’t consent to being included. Some are likely the ones adding the authors.

The best thing researchers can do is regularly search for their names. This includes searching in publication databases, Google Scholar and regular search engines.

If you see your name in a paper you did not contribute work to, report it. Even if the journal doesn’t take action, it creates a record of you having seen it and trying to prevent it.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution without some system for vetting authors for every paper. Instead, it’s important for researchers to be aware of this problem and look out for themselves and their colleagues.

Bottom Line

The moral of the story is simple: If you are a researcher, you need to be checking for unauthorized publications using your name.

It’s grossly unfair that this responsibility falls to individuals, but it does.

Simply put, adding legitimate authors to a paper hides the unethical publication and helps bolster its prominence. Unfortunately, this means legitimate researchers are affiliated with plagiarized, duplicative or otherwise problematic research.

It’s just another example of how bad actors in this space make things much more difficult for legitimate researchers.