In my observations, I have come across a practice where some researchers include foreign authors, particularly from underdeveloped countries, as the last author in their papers. This is done in order to obtain waivers or discounts in Hindawi journals. I am curious to understand the strategies researchers employ to overcome financial constraints in open-access publishing.
However, I have concerns about the ethical implications of this practice. I would like to explore whether this approach could be considered unethical within the research community.
Rather frequently, authorship is a cause of conflicts and unethical behaviour. The general rule is that only those who contributed to a publication should be listed as authors. See also these discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Opinions_on_coauthoring
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_Choose_a_Co-author_for_your_scientific_article
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Address_the_ethics_in_authorship_claims_of_research_publications
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Adding_scientists_to_a_paper_because_the_added_author_will_pay_APC_charges
https://www.researchgate.net/post/I_am_looking_for_authors_who_enter_directly_with_me_without_doing_anything_only_paying_the_Journals_fees_in_Scopus_or_Clarivate
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_any_one_to_defend_Honorary_forced_authorship_if_not_why_we_practice_it
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_Gift_authorship
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_action_can_you_take_against_someone_who_has_published_an_article_in_a_journal_but_did_not_give_you_a_rightful_authorship
Yes, this does raise serious ethical issues but obtaining evidence of fraudulent practice would be difficult
I agree with tire concerns and also note cases of articles with the opposite - where the first few authors (which did the hard work) are from an underdeveloped country and the last author is from a developed country and to think they must have paid for the publishing free. To me, that is just bully behaviour.
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