Friday, 2 October 2015

Beware a 'journal' called FSS (Forensic Science Seminars): publishing papers without authors' permission

Screenshot of our unpublished draft paper that somehow got published in the 'journal' FSS
I have previously reported here and here on cases of our work being plagiarised in the most brazen way. Now comes a more unusual case - our unpublished work has been published in a 'journal' without our permission. And it seems the journal's articles may all be obtained in this way.

A forensic scientist in the Netherlands contacted me this week to say that he had found a copy of one of his papers in a journal he had never heard of, namely ‘Forensic Science Seminar’. In the same journal, he found this article by us. In fact, that article is an exact copy of this unpublished draft article that appears on my website. The only difference is that the article on my website (which is dated Jan 2012) says the following very clearly on the front:
Much of the work in this unpublished draft paper has subsequently been published in the following (which should be cited):
  • Fenton, N. E., D. Berger, D. Lagnado, M. Neil and A. Hsu, (2014). "When ‘neutral’ evidence still has probative value (with implications from the Barry George Case)", Science and Justice, 54(4), 274-287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scijus.2013.07.002 
  • Fenton, N. E., Neil, M., & Hsu, A. (2014). "Calculating and understanding the value of any type of match evidence when there are potential testing errors". Artificial Intelligence and Law, 22. 1-28 . http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10506-013-9147-x 
The 'journal' is Printed and Published by "ZolCat® Academic House". Their other titles include:"Science and Nature", "Frontiers of Engineering Journal", "Journal of Computer Sciences".

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