The University of Nevada, Reno’s new dean of engineering and a new faculty member in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources are being accused online of research misconduct. The allegations are over journal articles published by Dean Erick Jones that he co-authored with his son, Erick Jones Jr. of the University of Texas at Arlington, and Felicia Jefferson, a UNR professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.
Statistician Andrew Gelman at Columbia University said he was tipped off to the Jones’s research articles by a reader of his blog.
“I recently read a paper of yours in the Chronicle about how academic fraudsters get away with it,” the tipster wrote to Gelman. “I came across a strange case that I thought you would at least have some interest in when a faculty members [sic] owns an open access journal that costs to publish and then publishes a large number of papers in the journal. The most recent issue is all from the same authors (family affair).”
Jefferson is said to be married to Jones Sr. The journal in question is published by PWD Group in Texas. Jones Sr. is listed as the director and publisher of the journal, “International Supply Chain Technology Journal.”
The pay-to-play journal charges $199 for people to have their articles published. Although the articles in the journal are listed as being peer-reviewed, no peers are listed, and articles submitted to the publication are published within days of submission, allegedly after being reviewed by others. Peer review of scientific research normally takes months and as much as a year or more.
According to Gelman and commenters, the journal articles are “incoherent,” riddled with grammatical errors and have misidentified photographs taken from online sources. Articles are as short as two paragraphs. Many of the journal’s articles are authored by both Joneses and Jefferson as the sole authors.
The tipster continued:
“Further looking into the journal publications you will see that there are a large number with Erick Jones Sr. and Erick Jones Jr. There are also a large number with Felicia Jefferson. Felicia is also a faculty member at UNR and the spouse of Dean Jones. A few of the papers raise concerns related to deer supply chains. The following has a very fast peer review process of a few days and the caption of a white tailed deer is a reindeer. Another paper is even shorter, with a very fast peer review, and captions yet a different deer which is still not a white tail. It is unlikely these papers went through a robust peer review.”
Gelman wrote a lengthy blog post about the situation, calling it “a horrifying story. You absolutely have to see it to believe it.”
Jefferson lists two articles from the journal on her UNR webpage. Jones Jr. also lists two of the articles on his University of Texas webpage as part of his academic credentials. That led to some commenters suggesting the journal was created as a vehicle for the three to enhance job prospects and, for Jones Jr., getting tenure at Texas.
Jones Sr. was a program director at the National Science Foundation, is listed as an advisory committee member to NSF and was praised by UNR President Brian Sandoval and Provost Jeff Thompson.
“In Erick Jones, our University has a dynamic leader who understands how to seize moments of opportunity in order to further an agenda of excellence,” Sandoval said. “The possibilities seem endless of what we will be capable of accomplishing under Jones’ leadership in the coming years.”
A university spokesperson on Feb. 8 said UNR officials are aware of the allegations.
“We take such claims seriously and it is standard practice for the University to review and investigate, which we are currently in the process of doing,” they said.
A commenter described the situation as blatant.
“Chapters of his books also suffer from the same issues of poor quality, likely plagiarism, and nepotism/scope creep. It’s never in isolation. He was just finally caught. I’m sure a further investigation would find these issues throughout his published works.”
Gelman called the situation crazy and questioned why Jones Sr. would put his name on articles of such poor quality.
“The problem with the Jones et al. papers discussed here was that they are not just content-free but so bad, just unfathomably bad, enough so that the entire scenario is baffling. Can you imagine being an engineering student at UNR and getting a C on a paper because it had some flaws—and then seeing what the dean of [the] school is attaching his name to? The whole thing is just nuts.”
Jones Sr. appeared to have responded in the comments below Gelman’s post. The first response, similar to his journal articles, was rife with grammatical errors. He accused Gelman of a “hatchet job” and defended the publication as giving reearchers the opportunity to get their work published.
“Generally, I don’t count these on my resume. I starred [sic] the journal after I was twice tenured and a full professor. I wanted to make sure this was seen as a ploy for tenure [sic]. Please note I have several textbooks and many articles from other journals that are higher indexed and quite frankly more accepted in the field. Personally when I started I did not expect to be an administrator just [sic] a faculty member who tried to make a difference and provide access to more applied supply chain engineering technology ideas, projects and research.
“As far as the criticisms of the many contributors, editorial board and current activities of the journal I feel you are being unfair.
“As far as some topics especially the one you are highlighting that was worked on by US students that a new thought backed by something believed to be novel and clearly states further investigation will be needed, written as more of a background study. It’s really short and is seeking to connect science to application and is a short item of note on the connection.
“I believe you are wrong in the crucification and analysis of this piece. Though as faculty and as an academic I believe it is fair to do so. I sent this to the current editor so he could officially send your criticism to the corresponding author so all authors can be contacted for rebuttal. The reviewers will then decide on the fate of the article as every normal paper publication.”
Gelman shot back.
“I emphasize that this is not a ‘hatchet job’ or a personal criticism, nor is it a criticism of the faculty or students at UNR,” he wrote. “Nor is it a criticism of public outreach. It is a criticism of some aspect of the UNR administration in which the dean of engineering is running a journal that is publishing junk papers by himself and others. If I were a student I would not be happy that this is where my tuition is going.”
Gelman also issued a challenge to UNR’s provost, who praised Jones’s hiring in 2022:
“My challenge for Jeff Thompson: Show up at an engineering class at your institution, read aloud the entire contents (i.e., the two paragraphs) of ‘Using Science to Minimize Sleep Deprivation that may reduce Train Accidents,’ then engage the students in a discussion of what this says about ‘the current landscape for what it means to be a Carnegie R1 ‘Very High Research’ institution. Should be fun, no? Just remember, the best way to keep the students’ attention is to remind them that, yes, this will be covered on the final exam.”
The controversy was first reported by the university’s student newspaper, The Sagebrush, and was the source of bemusement on Reno Reddit.
This Is Reno requested a comment from UT at Arlington but did not hear back by the time of publication. This story will be updated if a response is received.
He took an existing published paper, added his name to it, and proceeded to republish the exact same article 3 more times…
Vol. 4 No. 03 (2018): March 2018
Vol. 5 No. 09 (2019): September 2019
Vol. 6 No. 03 (2020): March 2020
Vol. 7 No. 09 (2021): September 2021 https://t.co/xfKouNXNUv pic.twitter.com/lOG0IdlAWP— Triple Bankshot (@triplebankshot) February 7, 2024
