Catherine Gracey
Open Scholarship and Applied Sciences Librarian at the University of New Brunswick
Building Awareness of Research Paper Mills: An Open Educational Approach
October 29, 2026
Kaitlin Fuller, Alison Manley, Catherine Gracey
Access slides from the QR code:
AI Disclosure
Claude, Sonnet 5.5 (Anthropic) was used to review draft slides for errors and clarity and to suggest wording for a few sentences; the content, module, layout and final decisions are the presenters' own.
Back up to R2R 2024
Kaitlin's image taken with very clear lens
Kaitlin's image, London 2024
In 2024, we were discussing the challenges of peer review in small groups. Paper mills kept coming up, regardless of which organization people were from or what role they played.
Small Group Discussion - peer review
Stock image from Unsplash
〞
Isn't that just a few shady people?
-Me [putting foot in mouth], 2024
What are paper mills?
... not this kind of paper mill...
Stock video from UnSplash
Organizations that generate fraudulent scholarship. They sell authorship on bogus papers, citations to boost paper rankings, and/or fake research results to be submitted to journals as legitimate studies.
Paper mills have become a big business. They account for a growing proportion of published academic papers, and this growth is increasing at an alarming rate.
Research Paper Mills
Stock image from Unsplash
〞
...analysis estimates that 1.5-2% of all scientific papers published in 2022 closely resemble paper-mill works. Among biology and medicine papers, the rate rises to 3%
– Richard Van Noorden (2023)
- $$ knowing participants
- The 'work' is fake
- Published via legitimate journals
- Attempt to trick (or manipulate)
- editors/peer-reviewers, as well as metrics such as citations
- Takes advantage of limited resourcing and trust markers
Paper Mills
- $$ authors to publish their work (an otherwise legitimate practice). The work itself may or may not be legitimate.
- Can be a journal or publisher level
- Does not conduct peer-review at all, or insufficiently
Predatory Journals
Research Paper Mills ≠ Predatory Journals
And collaboration among journals, publishers, librarians and institutions is essential to ensure timely, effective responses and corrections to the scientific record.
Paper mills impact all of us
Graphic Design by Vincci Lui at the University of Toronto using Canva Pro elements.
Open Science
Open science only works if what is out there and open is trustworthy.
Paper mills threaten that.
Stock image from UnSplash
Who is educating researchers, librarians, and institutions about paper mills?
Kaitlin's big question returning from R2R
Stock image from UnSplash
St. Francis Xavier University
Kaitlin Fuller
University of Toronto
Ana Patricia Ayala
University of New Brunswick
Catherine Gracey
The Team
University of Toronto
Erica Nekolaichuk
Saint Mary's University
Alison Manley
What could we do about it?
- Education & Awareness
- Improve post-publication corrections
- Research on paper mills
- Enable the development of trust markers
- Facilitate dialogue between stakeholders
United2Act Action Areas
Education & Awareness
Stock image from unsplash
We wanted resources we could share to with our communities to increase awareness of paper mills
So we built one!
Most researchers don't have a plain -language place to learn about paper mills...
3.
Determined learning objectives and layout
5.
2 rounds of peer feedback and revisions
1.
Discussion: what do we want to do? What is the gap we're seeing?
2.
How do we communicate about paper mills without scaring everyone?
4.
Technology: Examined platform options for open educational resources
6.
PUBLISHED!
There are other things that still need to be done, but this was the first milestone.
Our final list of chapters came out to:
Our final list of chapters came out to:
Our final list of chapters came out to:
Our final list of chapters came out to:
Our final list of chapters came out to:
Community Feedback Round Aggregated
| Feedback | Resulting changes |
|---|---|
| Audience scope comments (initially we just focused on Early Career Researchers) | Adapted some of our language to be more inclusive of all researchers from a range of disciplines while maintaining some specific messaging for ECR |
| Content scope comments (more content on predatory publishers?) | Avoided adding too much content, but contextualized relationship/similarities/differences between these two concepts |
| Pull apart what to do when publishing (creating research) vs reading (consuming research) | Broke our 'what to do' section into two (researchers and readers) to get into nuances of each role |
| Clarity, source, emphasis suggestions | Case by case basis! |
Our final list of chapters came out to:
- Developed using St. FX's instance of Articulate Rise, a digital publishing platform (similar to Pressbooks, but frankly just better looking)
- Knowledge checks embedded throughout
- peer feedback, especially from students, emphasized interactivity
- did not like vertical sliders
- Creative Commons CC BY NC-SA license applied
- Hosted by UofT Library (thank you UofT Libraries!)
OER Information
What came of the OER?
Conversations!
What came of the OER?
What came of the OER?
What came of the OER?
What came of the OER?
What came of the OER?
Next Steps
Maintenance
We've already done our first edit/reupload, to address small typos and other minor errors we've noticed. We are also staying on top of development & news in this space so that we can keep our module relevant & up to date.
1
Knowledge Translation Materials
One of our team members is working on turning this content into a slide deck, which we, or others can teach from
2
More Outreach
Team members have also drafted a blog post for DORA, joined United2Act working groups and train the trainers as well as NISO trust markers working group to share their expertise and perspectives.
3
Trust is the theme that ties discussions of all types of research misconduct, including paper mills, together.
- Trust in conventional publishing models
- Trust in science as a whole
- Trust in the research process
Make the process transparent. Show the evidence.
Trust
How can we build open science infrastructure that's as good at verifying research as it is at sharing it?
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StFX Online for providing technical support for the development of this module;
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The University of Toronto Libraries for hosting the module;
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Melissa Rothfus from Dalhousie University for helping us get started and providing feedback;
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Vincci Lui from the University of Toronto Libraries for graphic design help with the infographic in Section 2;
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Natalie Liza Barte, student assistant, from Saint Mary's University, for helping with reference formatting;
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Carolyn DeLorey from St. Francis Xavier University for copy editing; and
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All of our reviewers who helped shape this module with their feedback and insights. Your feedback was instrumental in helping us pull this together!
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Sophia Godso, Dr. Laura Estill, Dr. Chris Gilham, Dr. David Maslove, Dr. Martine Puts, Dr. Jeremy Ng, Heather Cunningham, CAAL/CBPA Scholarly Communications Committee, Dr. Tanja Rombey, Dr. David Blanco de Tena-Ávila & several graduate students from the University of Toronto and upper-year undergraduates working as library assistants at St.FX.
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Thank you!
Thanks! Questions?
Again, our slides are available here!
Canadian Open Science Conference 2026
By Catherine Gracey
