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Researchers at Jagiellonian University identified that three philosophy journals published by Addleton Academic Publishers achieved top-10 rankings in the Scopus database by using AI-generated papers and extensive cross-citation. This manipulation has distorted academic metrics used for hiring, promotions, and awards, effectively displacing legitimate journals. The incident highlights the vulnerability of automated academic ranking systems to AI-driven content generation and citation manipulation.
Three reportedly fake journals published by Addleton Academic Publishers allegedly manipulated Scopus rankings by extensively cross-citing each other and using AI-generated papers filled with buzzwords. These journals, placed in the top 10 of Scopus's 2023 CiteScore philosophy list, reportedly featured fake authors, affiliations, and grant numbers, in turn allegedly pushing legitimate journals to lower tiers, affecting academic evaluations and awards.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to gain a personal advantage over others such as through cheating, fraud, scams, blackmail or targeted manipulation of beliefs or behavior. Examples include AI-facilitated plagiarism for research or education, impersonating a trusted or fake individual for illegitimate financial benefit, or creating humiliating or sexual imagery.
Also classified as
The academic literature database was polluted with automatically generated nonsense papers, undermining the integrity of scientific consensus.
The flood of AI-generated papers displaced legitimate, human-authored journals in academic rankings, devaluing honest research effort.
The publishers and authors used AI systems to engage in academic fraud and cheating, generating fake papers to artificially boost journal rankings for personal and institutional advantage.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
The incident was caused by human actors who intentionally deployed AI text-generation tools to produce fake academic papers and game the Scopus ranking system.
Added categories peak at 3: Substantial (Epistemic Harm, Indirect)
Researchers identified that three philosophy journals manipulated Scopus rankings using AI-generated papers and cross-citations. While this compromised academic evaluation metrics at institutions like Jagiellonian University, it has negligible direct national security implications.
The report does not characterize the AI system's specific mode of operation beyond stating that the papers were 'automatically generated' using templates.
Limited Risk: The report describes the use of AI to generate text and academic papers, which falls under transparency obligations for AI-generated content.
The AI system was used to automatically generate academic philosophy papers filled with technical buzzwords and templated literature reviews.
The report provides clear, empirical evidence of academic metric manipulation using AI-generated papers, detailing the specific journals, publisher, and the mechanism of cross-citation. The impact on university evaluations is explicitly described.
None. The evidence of systematic citation manipulation and templated paper generation is highly robust.
Technology
Automated Paper Generation
AI tools were used to generate low-quality templated academic papers.
Vulnerable Ranking Algorithms
Proprietary Scopus algorithms failed to detect artificial citation spikes.
Data Inputs
Fake Author Affiliations
Fabricated institutions and domains were used to register fake authors.
Coordinated Cross-Citations
Systematic cross-citing inflated citation metrics for Addleton journals.
Fabricated Grant Data
Fake grant numbers from nonexistent institutions were input into papers.
Human Factors
Blind Trust in Metrics
Decision-makers relied blindly on Scopus scores without manual verification.
Indifference to Alerts
Faculty showed indifference when alerted to the presence of fake journals.
Academic Pressure to Publish
Pressure for awards and promotions incentivized gaming citation metrics.
Process and Methods
Automatic Ranking Use
Automatic use of Scopus lists for hiring and promotion evaluations.
Opaque Metric Algorithms
Lack of transparency in SJR and SNIP algorithms prevents external auditing.
Inadequate Journal Screening
Scopus vetting processes failed to filter out coordinated citation rings.
Management
Flawed Promotion Policies
Management prioritized quantitative metrics over qualitative research reviews.
Negligent Editorial Oversight
Publishers failed to verify editorial board members, including dead scholars.
AI system involved
An AI system was involved, but the reports do not identify it.
Identified by automated extraction; can differ from the alleged developers above.
