About a year ago, Retraction Watch began probing search engines with queries a scientist desperate for publications might make: "authorship for sale," "call for co-authors," "Scopus-indexed publications," "guaranteed journal acceptance," etc.

Sure enough, one of the first searches directed to the front page of the Academic Research and Development Association (ARDA), based in Chennai, India. ARDA presents itself as a professional organization that offers services including “Conferences and Meetings”, “Journal Publications” and “Article Writing Services”. ARDA also maintains lists of indexed journals in which it can guarantee publication, along with guidelines on how long acceptance should take and instructions to limit plagiarism to a journal-specific threshold. All of these journals claim to be peer-reviewed on their own websites.

Later it was uncovered a network of associations consisting of 828 distinct businesses, journals, publishers, individuals, universities, professional societies and indexing services. Several of these businesses (such as the Institute for Scientific and Engineering Research and World Academics) have websites that are almost identical in layout and function to ARDA’s, offering article writing and publication in many of the same journals. In general for every legitimate kind of scientific activity, be it publishing articles, organizing conferences and professional societies or patenting new technologies, we found an ARDA-affiliated organization selling a fake version of that activity.

Source: https://retractionwatch.com/2024/10/01/hidden-hydras-uncovering-the-massive-footprint-of-one-paper-mills-operations/#more-130129