The Fake-Real Dilemma

In our beautiful country, where we question a different problem in our minds every day, we are now facing a "fake diploma" scandal. Initially, allegations emerged that 400 academics had been promoted academically using fake diplomas. As this caused what could be called an uproar on social media, the Center for Combating Disinformation under the Presidency denied the situation and issued a statement claiming that no academics were involved in the fake diploma issue. Frankly, the fact that these individuals might be employed in a sector or field other than academia is no less grave. Moreover, the state of academia without fake academics is not exactly "real" either. Or rather, the situation goes far beyond the fake-real dilemma. 

How so? 

Okay, there are no associate professors/professors with fake diplomas among us... But are those who earned their titles by publishing in predatory journals until not so long ago real? For those who don't know, a predatory journal is a journal that bypasses the peer-review processes that academic publications should undergo and publishes for money. Since 2019, the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) has started publishing a list and introduced a rule that publications made in such journals will not be used for title promotions. The issue of what happened until 2019 has not been discussed much. Predatory journals are a global problem. There are various national and international examples of them. 

Of course, one should not limit the subject to journals. If you are an academic in Turkey, someone—these are "entrepreneurial" academics—will send you emails every other day without your consent. The subject line is "invitation to book chapter." It says that if you participate as a group in books compiled with a "come as you are" mentality, you will also get a discount. On top of that, you are promised that your book chapters will be suitable for academic incentives and associate professorship criteria. Similarly, another business model is international congresses prepared in accordance with incentive and promotion criteria that have no common theme. The international nature of these congresses is just like bookstores in Turkey that claim to be international publishers while printing books in Turkish with Turks. The entrepreneurial academic makes money, and the academic trying to meet the criteria checks a box on their list. What is produced is another matter. Or rather, if you say you want to produce something decent, you are always late for promotions. This is the reality. 

When the forgery issue broke out the other day, colleagues suddenly appeared saying, "there used to be an oral exam for associate professorship, let that come back." So, were those old associate professorship oral exams really genuine academic meetings where your works were thoroughly discussed and questioned? If your answer is exactly yes, then by all means, let them come back. In a clique world where separate groups support each other in everything from staff appointments to publications, establish their own journals, and publish in those journals themselves, and where even your cult works are not cited if you are not part of them, I do not think an oral exam would contribute to any real academic improvement or merit. 

Let's come to those who receive genuine diplomas but have others write their projects, master's theses, and even doctoral dissertations to obtain these diplomas, and pay money for it. This is also a business model. Frankly, I don't know how many companies do this, but from what I see on the internet, there are many. In this case, the diploma may be real, but is the academic themselves real? 

Those research assistants who were flown from the last place to the first place in the recruitment exam as a result of their connections, those who were appointed to positions they did not deserve, and those who forced their own names onto articles all have real diplomas. But the situation is a bit blurry, isn't it? 

Epilogue: I did not design this article as a summary of academic problems. I wanted to present one—or several—examples that the fake-real dilemma we talk about so much these days is not enough to understand the subject. Otherwise, there are many more troubles in academia that go beyond these. Despite everything, I also have many colleagues who try to remain real. Let those be the subject of another article...