The Papermill Alarm is an early-warning system from Clear Skies that alerts journal editors to papers showing signs of papermilling. Adam Day, who created it, describes it as detecting trends in the template titles and abstracts that paper mills reuse. It draws on public sources including Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex, and on data that publishers have contributed. Day says its “red” alerts are engineered to have zero or near-zero false positives in testing, and that he validated it against early-warning lists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and by spot-checking papers in flagged journals.
Benefits & outcomes
- Adam Day reports that, in his experience, rejection rates for papers with red alerts are significantly higher than for other papers.
Notes & quotes
- “When an editor sees an alert, they know this is one of those times when they need to call on their best reviewers.” Adam Day.
Publisher / company: Clear Skies
Date of case study: 2024
Status: Live
Built by: Company
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