Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, who teaches political science at Universiti Sains Malaysia, said this could also be the reason behind the poorly written research paper by senior lecturers at a teaching university in Perak.
He said the problem is not unique to Malaysia, but is also rampant in other developing countries.
He said there are many publishers under the guise of academic bodies which are willing to carry writings by lecturers for a fee.
“Most of them are online and they request money from you. These papers are not peer-reviewed,” Fauzi told FMT.
He said many had turned to such publishers as their papers had no chance of making it to reputable journals.
“Some people take this opportunity to cash in on the gullibility of academics, especially the younger ones who need to publish their papers to gain promotions.
“For these academics to publish with certain reputable publishers may be too difficult as their English is not up to mark. The easy way out for them is to publish in such predatory outlets,” he said.
Fauzi’s comments come in the wake of FMT’s report on Monday, about a research paper criticising vocal Muslim critic Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa and his outfit Islamic Renaissance Front.
The paper titled “Political Islam in Islamism and Post Islamism: A Study on Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF)”, was published by a little known website called the International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences.
But what raised eyebrows was the fact that the 19-page essay, written by three senior lecturers of Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (USPI), was littered with grammatical and spelling errors.
A quick check revealed that the publisher of the “journal”, the Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (HRMars), is among a list of “questionable scholarly publishers” compiled by US-based librarian Jeffrey Beall.
But one of the essay’s authors, Muhammad Atiullah Othman, has defended the paper, saying it was checked by UPSI’s research centre. Attempts by FMT to contact the university administration have so far failed.
“All the facts are in my hand. There is no reference to fake journals,” Atiullah said.
Fauzi, who was a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute, said the journal’s reputation was questionable.
“If I were the reviewer of the paper, I would have rejected that article,” he said.
“You don’t have to go into the paper. Just reading the first sentence of its abstract tells you that it was not proofread.”
He advised lecturers against publishing their articles with outfits not backed by credible universities, adding that they have a greater responsibility if they received a government grant which is funded by the public.
“I’m not sure if these lecturers used public funds, but if they did, they have basically squandered public money.
“If they used a grant, which is a public fund sourced out to the university, they have to publish the papers in respectable publications recognised in the academic field,” he said.