This paper contains two excellent papers on testing non-traditional aspects of software. MobSTer: A model-based security testing framework for web applications, by Michele Peroli, Federico De Meo, Luca Viganò, and Davide Guardini, uses model checking to evaluate security of web applications. (Recommended by Alex Pretschner.) An automated functional testing approach for virtual reality applications, by Alinne C. Corrêa Souza, Fátima L. S. Nunes, and Márcio E. Delamaro, presents a method to test virtual reality applications, a growing area for which testing is quite different from traditional software. (Recommended by Lori Pollock.) I’m happy to say that neither of these papers is published in a facade journal.
This editorial completes a series about what I call facade journals. I started by arguing that peer reviews are essential to ensuring quality of published papers [1]. I next introduced the term “facade journals,” which pretend to publish quality science but do not [2]. Others have called these “predatory journals” [3] [4] [5], but as I point out here, many journals that publish papers with little or no scientific quality are not always predatory. Most recently, I gave suggestions for how to recognize facade journals [6].
The classic book Ender’s Game [7] taught me that understanding the competition helps us win. This echoes advice from the great Chinese general, Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” Before the scientific community can respond to facade journals, we must first understand them. Why do they exist? Why do people publish in them? Let me walk through it.
It is hard to be good at research. It takes years of study, and more years of apprenticing to an established scientist. Success requires wisdom to find worthwhile research problems, creativity to invent new solutions, objectivity to evaluate the ideas, communication skills to disseminate the research, resilience to bounce back from failure and criticism, and integrity to avoid shortcuts. Research also takes hard work—many hours in laboratories, libraries, the field, and in front of computers. In many fields (including software engineering), we can make more money with less effort in non-research jobs.
With all this, shortcuts are tempting. I use the word “cheat” in a broad sense—stealing, plagiarism, lying, etc. In my experience, a small percentage of people will never cheat, a small percentage will usually cheat, but most are in the middle and will sometimes cheat. Some will cheat if they know they won’t get caught, if the consequences of getting caught are low, or if the benefit is high. But many, maybe most, people will cheat if we think the rules are unfairly stacked against us. How many of us drive faster than the speed limit? The speed limits seem ridiculously low, we probably won’t get caught, and if we do it’s usually a small fine. Paying taxes seems unfair, so many people exaggerate on their tax forms. 30 years of teaching have taught me that if assignments are reasonable, grading is fair, and the professor is skilled and supportive, very few students will cheat. But if they think the system is unfair, many students will cheat. Maybe even most.
Publishing in facade journals is a type of cheating. Authors claim credit for scientific publications, when in reality the paper does not advance human knowledge. But why do they publish these papers? Not because they are completely unethical or sociopaths. Most authors publish in facade journals because they think the system is rigged against them!
Many universities require professors to publish in international journals and conferences. Positive motivators include raises, bonuses, lower teaching loads, promotion, and other perqs. Negative motivators include reductions in pay, higher teaching loads, and termination. Some universities provide a lot of support, but some don’t. Many universities, especially in developing countries, cannot hire professors with strong research training; instead they hire professors who had little or no effective academic training. If your advisor didn’t know how to do international quality research, how can you learn? If your dissertation was not competitive, how can you start doing great research after graduation?
If a young scientist at a small university in a poor country could not get adequate research training, but is then put under enormous pressure to publish in international journals and conferences, there is no doubt the system is rigged against him! The only path to success is to cheat.
To repeat: People cheat when the system is unfair.
Like many other things, cheating has been disrupted by the web [8]. First, the journals can compare submitted papers with thousands of published papers. Not only can conferences check automatically, they are also very expensive: travel, visas, and high registration fees bias the field against professors from poor universities. These avenues for cheating may be more limited than in the past, but the web also offers a solution. Instead of the 1990s method of putting ink on paper and mailing thick stacks of paper, journals just put bits on a server. Paper was expensive, but bits? They are cheap.
Thus facade journals. If scientists have no hope of following the rules in a system that is rigged against them, facade journals may be their only path to success. So I suggest that facade journals serve a useful purpose—they give some professors a chance.
Ender’s Game [7] had a quote that I find very compelling at this point: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.” It’s easy for rich people to take a high moral ground and insist that cheaters be harshly published. But how many of us would steal food to feed our starving children? If no matter how hard you work and how well you follow the rules, you can’t win because the rules are unfair, would you take a shortcut? If you can’t publish in STVR or ICST, but your promotion committee, your chair, and your dean will accept facade publications as real, would you? I would like to claim I wouldn’t cheat, but the privilege I was granted by being born in a rich country with a strong education system means I have never been in that position. I’m reluctant to claim that moral superiority without being put to the test.
So yes, facade journals serve a purpose. I don’t like the purpose, but like any drug, they will not go away as long as there is a demand.
What can successful scientists with integrity do? We have a professional responsibility to educate our students about which journals (and conferences) are “real” and which are fake. Not in an elitist, qualitative, manner of “conference X is better than Y because X rejects more papers,” but in the quantitative manner of “this journal publishes papers that advance human knowledge, but that journal does not.” So I’ve come full circle to the point in my first essay on this topic [1]: the value of a journal is in the rigorous but fair reviewing. The peer review system has survived for centuries, and I’m confident it will survive the web and facade journals.
[1] Jeff Offutt. What is the value of the peer-reviewing system? (Editorial), Wiley’s journal of Software Testing, Verification, and Reliability, 28(5), July 2018.
[2] Jeff Offutt. What is a facade journal? (Editorial), Wiley’s journal of Software Testing, Verification, and Reliability, 28(6), August 2018.
[3] Emma Pettit, These Professors Don’t Work for a Predatory Publisher. It Keeps Claiming They Do, The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2018.
[4] Alex Gillis, Beware! Academics are getting reeled in by scam journals, University Affairs, January 201.
[5] How to Identify Predatory/Fake Journals, Enago Acadamy, May 2018,
[6] Jeff Offutt. How can we recognize facade journals? (Editorial), Wiley’s journal of Software Testing, Verification, and Reliability, 28(7), October 2018.
[7] Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, Tor Books, 1985.
[8] Jeff Offutt. Beware of predatory journals (Editorial), Wiley’s journal of Software Testing, Verification, and Reliability, 27(7), October 2017.
Jeff Offutt
George Mason University
offutt@gmu.edu
10 October 2018