Abstract
This letter examines the ethics of a “sting” paper submitted by Dr. Albana Berisha Qehaja, a faculty member of the Department of Management and Informatics, Faculty of Economy, University of Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo. In that paper, which stung this journal, IJRBS, Dr. Qehaja created a fake paper, with a fake name and fake institutional affiliation, as well as specially crafted email and ORCID accounts to masquerade the identity of the true author of the fake paper, namely Dr. Qehaja. Such behavior is not only an act of extreme scholarly malpractice, it is one of the most unethical behaviors in academic publishing because it violates all of the journal’s and international ethics’ practices for submission of a paper to a journal. Other academics thinking of employing such unethical tactics for any publishing-related objective should reconsider their options and carefully calculate the ethical, legal, and possibly criminal consequences of such actions
Highlights
What elements of Dr Qehaja’s paper were unethical? Apparently, through public admission and revelations, all aspects of that paper were either false, fake, or fraudulent, all of which were created by Dr Qehaja
The possible oversight and errors by the journal and publisher will be dealt with separately so as to focus exclusively on the ethical infractions of the real author (Albana Berisha Qehaja) and so as not to confuse or distract the reader. This “fake” paper was submitted to IJRBS to expose apparent editorial and peer review oversight, as a “sting” paper, to support her claims that faculty members at the same institution were receiving rewards and/or privileges based on publications in low-level journals that did not
Why are sting operations in the form of fake papers with fake elements unethical? As already alluded to above, fake papers with fake elements violate stated ethical guidelines and submission requirements put in place by journals in an attempt to repel unethical or fraudulent authors, and they waste the valuable time of editors and peer reviewers (Al-Khatib & Teixeira da Silva, 2016)
Summary
Through public admission and revelations, all aspects of that paper were either false, fake, or fraudulent, all of which were created by Dr Qehaja.
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