7 ms·

Original author here. The two things you pointed out were exactly the two things that first caused me to get suspicious of this conference. However, as notthet

by ngkabra 13y ago

Original author here. The two things you pointed out were exactly the two things that first caused me to get suspicious of this conference. However, as notthetup points out, there are lots of people in the Indian education system who don't know this. And the statement I made: Seems like an impressive conference, and getting a paper published in this conference should be a big achievement on any student’s resume, right? is actually something many students and faculty in our engineering colleges actually think. (Edit: formatting)

anonymouz 13y ago
I think it is the job of the advisor of the student to guide him in the choice of conferences to go to or journals to publish in. He should know the truly important ones in his field, and be able to make a judgment of the quality of a conference or journal based on familiarity with the work of the organizers/editors and other participants. Everybody can put up a conference web page: It is completely hopeless to expect to be able judge the quality of a conference by what they claim on their web page, as the scam ones will be the ones boasting with their internationality and prestige, while the actually prestigious have no need to do so. The same goes for journals. I regularly get "calls for papers" from scammy journals that claim to be world class journals, but which are essentially a money making scheme (usually using some open access author pays model). Of course, I agree with you that the requirement of having your bachelor's or master's thesis published is idiotic, and driving students into to be victims of these scams. The universities need to stop this practice, and the advisors need to guide the students who have something that is truly worth publishing in their choice of venue.
- ngkabra 13y ago
  Don't even get me started on the quality of the advisors... :-(
shubhamjain 13y ago
That explains how hollow is the pride of M. Tech teachers in our country who pat their own backs about their papers getting published. So many research papers are just crap and add nothing to the existing knowledge. Tell me something, is this true for Ph. D. as well? Because that would feel like an opener against people proudly wearing "Dr." in their titles.
onetwofiveten 13y ago
This must be corruption at work. It's unrealistic to demand that Master's level students have two good quality published papers. There's no research benefit in publishing poor quality papers. So the reason must be fake prestige or scamming money. Keep spreading the word about this. If you embarrass your authorities (especially amongst the wider International scientific community), then things will change. My only feedback would be that to communicate to non-Indians, you need to make it clear early on that this is a widespread problem that students can't avoid because of the pressure to publish. On first reading your post I thought you were just upset about a single fake conference - which didn't seem like big news to me.
- ngkabra 13y ago
  Good point. I have that point buried way down in the post. Need to give it prominence somewhere in the beginning.
  - kken 13y ago
    This is definitely important, since I had the same impression and was a bit suprised how you could be that angry about a single conference. Btw, is it also a requirement for students in India to send out a specific number of applications? I get a lot of phd position applications from indian students as response to my publications. They look like mass emails and are usually absolutely unrelated to the field.
    - ngkabra 13y ago
      Thanks. I've updated the intro of the post to make this clearer. The PhD applications problem is a different issue. We're churning out a million engineers every year, and a good fraction of them are convinced that getting into a Masters/PhD program in the US is the gateway to riches and a better life. A few of these students are smart enough to know where to apply and how to apply, but most of them are clueless enough to actually spam any faculty email addresses they can find from any US university. And yes, they're mass emails, in the sense that they send out these mails to 10s of people without bothering to customize them. The important thing to remember is that India is a vast and varied country. We have the worst students, but we also have the best students - so don't completely ignore all emails from all Indian sounding names; one of them might just be from the next superstar at your school :-)
astrowizicist 13y ago
No, it's not. As an academic myself, we get spam emails advertising conferences just like this. It is not an achievement (of any sort), and what you're doing poorly represents both the academic system, and yourself.
- ngkabra 13y ago
  I am not sure I understand what you're saying. I know that getting a paper in a conference like this is not an achievement. However, I know lots of students who do not know this. I know faculty in Engineering colleges who do not know this. I know many people who actually pay money to get published in such conferences because they really believe it's an achievement. Hence, this expose to improve awareness. I am not sure how I have poorly represented the academic system and myself by doing that, so could you elaborate?
  - crocowhile 13y ago
    What astrowizicist is trying to say is that any student - let alone faculty - who is falling for a spamference is clearly too stupid to work in academia.
    - nilkn 13y ago
      I think the real point of this article is that it's not realistic to expect every one of these students to have two high-quality published papers as a graduation requirement. This leads to and fuels the bogus conferences.
  - ct1 13y ago
    I may elaborate, in the hope it is useful. You should never submit any work to a conference or journal you do not know and follow beforehand. To be more explicit: a good rule of thumb is that if you are not familiar with the publications of at least some of the committee or, if you were asked to suggest reviewers for you research out of the scientific committee members, you'd be hard pressed to name a few, you should not submit anything. Your students should know that. If none explained something similar to the above, then you should have. As you get older, I find I only follow 1-2 quality publications. I often get invited to dubious / shady conferences and I just hit the spam button. All of my peers do the same.
aet 13y ago
You want a PhD and you are going to submit to a conference that wants your "bank account details"?

by ngkabra 13y ago

anonymouz 13y ago

I think it is the job of the advisor of the student to guide him in the choice of conferences to go to or journals to publish in. He should know the truly important ones in his field, and be able to make a judgment of the quality of a conference or journal based on familiarity with the work of the organizers/editors and other participants. Everybody can put up a conference web page: It is completely hopeless to expect to be able judge the quality of a conference by what they claim on their web page, as the scam ones will be the ones boasting with their internationality and prestige, while the actually prestigious have no need to do so. The same goes for journals. I regularly get "calls for papers" from scammy journals that claim to be world class journals, but which are essentially a money making scheme (usually using some open access author pays model). Of course, I agree with you that the requirement of having your bachelor's or master's thesis published is idiotic, and driving students into to be victims of these scams. The universities need to stop this practice, and the advisors need to guide the students who have something that is truly worth publishing in their choice of venue.

ngkabra 13y ago
Don't even get me started on the quality of the advisors... :-(

shubhamjain 13y ago

That explains how hollow is the pride of M. Tech teachers in our country who pat their own backs about their papers getting published. So many research papers are just crap and add nothing to the existing knowledge. Tell me something, is this true for Ph. D. as well? Because that would feel like an opener against people proudly wearing "Dr." in their titles.

onetwofiveten 13y ago

This must be corruption at work. It's unrealistic to demand that Master's level students have two good quality published papers. There's no research benefit in publishing poor quality papers. So the reason must be fake prestige or scamming money. Keep spreading the word about this. If you embarrass your authorities (especially amongst the wider International scientific community), then things will change. My only feedback would be that to communicate to non-Indians, you need to make it clear early on that this is a widespread problem that students can't avoid because of the pressure to publish. On first reading your post I thought you were just upset about a single fake conference - which didn't seem like big news to me.

ngkabra 13y ago
Good point. I have that point buried way down in the post. Need to give it prominence somewhere in the beginning.
- kken 13y ago
  This is definitely important, since I had the same impression and was a bit suprised how you could be that angry about a single conference. Btw, is it also a requirement for students in India to send out a specific number of applications? I get a lot of phd position applications from indian students as response to my publications. They look like mass emails and are usually absolutely unrelated to the field.
  - ngkabra 13y ago
    Thanks. I've updated the intro of the post to make this clearer. The PhD applications problem is a different issue. We're churning out a million engineers every year, and a good fraction of them are convinced that getting into a Masters/PhD program in the US is the gateway to riches and a better life. A few of these students are smart enough to know where to apply and how to apply, but most of them are clueless enough to actually spam any faculty email addresses they can find from any US university. And yes, they're mass emails, in the sense that they send out these mails to 10s of people without bothering to customize them. The important thing to remember is that India is a vast and varied country. We have the worst students, but we also have the best students - so don't completely ignore all emails from all Indian sounding names; one of them might just be from the next superstar at your school :-)

astrowizicist 13y ago

No, it's not. As an academic myself, we get spam emails advertising conferences just like this. It is not an achievement (of any sort), and what you're doing poorly represents both the academic system, and yourself.

ngkabra 13y ago
I am not sure I understand what you're saying. I know that getting a paper in a conference like this is not an achievement. However, I know lots of students who do not know this. I know faculty in Engineering colleges who do not know this. I know many people who actually pay money to get published in such conferences because they really believe it's an achievement. Hence, this expose to improve awareness. I am not sure how I have poorly represented the academic system and myself by doing that, so could you elaborate?
- crocowhile 13y ago
  What astrowizicist is trying to say is that any student - let alone faculty - who is falling for a spamference is clearly too stupid to work in academia.
  - nilkn 13y ago
    I think the real point of this article is that it's not realistic to expect every one of these students to have two high-quality published papers as a graduation requirement. This leads to and fuels the bogus conferences.
- ct1 13y ago
  I may elaborate, in the hope it is useful. You should never submit any work to a conference or journal you do not know and follow beforehand. To be more explicit: a good rule of thumb is that if you are not familiar with the publications of at least some of the committee or, if you were asked to suggest reviewers for you research out of the scientific committee members, you'd be hard pressed to name a few, you should not submit anything. Your students should know that. If none explained something similar to the above, then you should have. As you get older, I find I only follow 1-2 quality publications. I often get invited to dubious / shady conferences and I just hit the spam button. All of my peers do the same.

aet 13y ago

You want a PhD and you are going to submit to a conference that wants your "bank account details"?