Emerald Group Publishing - Republication Controversy

Republication Controversy

In 2004, Philip Davis of Cornell University found extensive covert duplication of articles in Emerald/MCB University Press journals, including at least 409 examples of articles from sixty-seven journals that were republished without notification that they were previously published. He found examples of triplicate publishing, as well as journals that contained no original content, but were filled with articles submitted to other journals. He published a follow-up article reporting that the owners of Emerald were simultaneously acting as authors, editors, and managers of these journals, duplicating not only the work of others but their own as well. Emerald undertook its own study and identified 560 republished papers from 1989 to 2004, 1.1 percent of its total database. Davis argued that "whatever the number, no amount of premeditated covert article duplication is acceptable".