Some notes on "Citations for Sale" about King Abdulaziz University offerring me $$ to become an adjunct faculty

There is a news story in the Daily Cal titled "Citations for Sale" by Megan Messerly about King Abdullah University King Abdulaziz University trying to pay researchers who are highly cited to become adjunct professors there to boost their rankings.  This article stemmed from a blog post by Lior Pachter.  I was interviewed by the Daily Cal reporter about this because I had sent Lior some of the communications I had had with people from KAU where they tried to get me to do this.

I am posting here some of the email discussions / threads that I shared with Lior and Megan.

Thread #1.

Here is one thread of emails in which KAU tried to get me to become an Adjunct Professor.  I have pulled out the text of the emails and removed the senders ID just in case this would get him in trouble.

Received this email 3/6/14

Dear Prof Jonathan, 

How are you? I hope every thing is going well. I hope to share work with you and initiate a collaboration between you and me in biology department, Kind Abdulaziz university . My research focuses on (redacted detail). I hope that you would agree . 

Redacted Name,Ph.D
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, KSA.

My response:

What kind of collaboration are you imagining?

His response:

Hi Prof Jonathan, 

Let me to explain that the king abdulaziz university initiated a project which is called Highly Cited Professor ( HiCi). This project can provide a contract between you and our university and from this contract you can get 7000 US$ as a monthly salary .So  this project will allow you to generate two research proposal between you and a research stuff here in order to make an excellent publications in high quality journals as you always do. 

I hope that I was clear. I' m looking forward to hear from you. Finally, I think that a very good chance to learn from you. 

 Another email from him:

Dear prof Jonathan, 

I' d like to tell that Prof Inder Verma will come tomorrow to our university  as a highly cited professor and he also signed a contract with us. At March 28 Prof Paul Hebert will come to our university and we actually generated two projects with Prof Paul. I hope you trust me and you call Prof  Inder and  Paul to be sure. 

From me:

I trust you - just am very busy so not sure if this is right for me
Sent from my iPhone

From him:

You will come to our university for just two visits annually and each visit will take only  one week. Take you time to think. Bye

Another email from him

Seat Dr Jonathan, 

What is your decision?

My response:

You have not really provided me with enough information about this.

From him:

Well, you will sign a contract as a highly cited professor between you and KAU. if it happen you will get 7,000 US$ per month for one year as a salary.  From  this project you would be able to generate two proposal with around 200,000 US$ and you will get incentives from each one. In the further we can initiate a mega project with 1.5 million US$.   Is that clear? 

From me:

I could use a formal , legal description of the agreement that one is expected to sign 

From him:

You can ask Prof Dr. Inder Verma he is now in my department and he did two presentation today. Also you can ask my professor prof  Paul Hebert, biodiversity institute of Ontario who will come to my department in March 28,2014.

From him:

if you would agree . Coul you please provide me with your CV with list of publication? 

From him:

Are you agree or no?

From me:

No 

You have not provided me with anywhere near enough info to evaluate this 

Do you have any legal agreement I can look at?

From him:

Agreement from KAU
without providing me with your CV I could not be able to talk to university administration. I told you before ask under verma or Paul Hebert both of them have contract. Dr verma " editor in chief of PNAS who is left KAS since 4 hours ago. Finally, its up to.

From me:

No thanks
Not interested from what you have told me

Thread #2

Received this email on 12/17/13

Dr. Mansour Almazroui
12/17/13
to jaeisen
Dear Prof. Jonathan Eisen ,

I am Dr. Mansour Almazroui, Highly Cited Program Manager, at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. On behalf of KAU with great pleasure, I would like to invite you to join our innovative collaboration program that is called “International Affiliation program”.

KAU is considered as the largest university in the region serving more than 150,000 students, with around 4,000 faculty members and 30 colleges. For more information please locate us at:  http://www.kau.edu.sa.

The envisaged program aims to elevate our local research activities in various fields. We only extend our invitation to highly ranked researchers like you, with a solid track record in research and publications to work with KAU professors.

Joining our program will immediately put you on an annual contract, as a Distinguished Adjunct Professor. In this regard, you will only be required to work at KAU premises for three weeks in each year of your contract.

We hope you to accept our invitation and looking forward to welcome you.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me for any further query or clarification.

Sincerely,
Mansour
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Mansour Almazroui
Highly Cited Program Manager,
Office of the Vice President for Graduated Studies and Research,
King Abdulaziz University (KAU).
&
Director, Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research
King Abdulaziz University
P. O. Box 80234, Jeddah 21589,
Saudi Arabia

I wrote back

I am intrigued but need more information about the three weeks of time at KAU and the details on the contract. 

Jonathan Eisen  

Sent from my iPhone

Got this back

Dear Prof. Jonathan Eisen , 

Hope this email finds you in good health. Thank you for your interest. Please find below the information you requested to be a “Distinguished Adjunct Professor” at KAU. 

1. Joining our program will put you on an annual contract initially for one year but further renewable. However, either party can terminate           its association with one month prior notice.
2. The Salary per month is $ 6000 for the period of contract.
3. You will be required to work at KAU premises for three weeks in each contract year. For this you will be accorded with expected three         visits to KAU.
4. Each visit will be at least for one week long but extendable as suited for research needs.
5. Air tickets entitlement will be in Business-class and stay in Jeddah will be in a five star hotel. The KAU will cover all travel and living             expenses of your visits.
6. You have to collaborate with KAU local researchers to work on KAU funded (up to $100,000.00) projects.
7. It is highly recommended to work with KAU researchers to submit an external funded project by different agencies in Saudi Arabia.
8. May submit an international patent.
9. It is expected to publish some papers in ISI journals with KAU affiliation.
10. You will be required to amend your ISI highly cited affiliation details at the ISI highlycited.com web site to include your employment and         affiliation with KAU.   

Kindly let me know your acceptance so that the official contract may be preceded.
Sincerely,
Mansour

I promtly forwarded this to my brother with a note:

One way to make some extra money ... Sell your reputation / ISI index  

Sent from my iPhone

And my brother eventually shared this with Lior  ...

UPDATE 1: 12/5/2014

One key question is - what are the rules and guidelines and ehitcs of listing affiliations on papers.  Here are some tidbits on this

From Nature Communications:

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done.

From Taylor and Francis

The affiliations of all named co-authors should be the affiliation where the research was conducted.

From SAGE

Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names.

UPDATE 2: Some other posts of relevance

• To some a citation is worth $3 per year
• Are Saudi universities buying their way into top charts? by Mohammed Yahia

UPDATE 3: A Storify

Talk for UC Davis Pre-Health Meeting (#UCDPHSA): Opening up to Diversity

Sunday I gave a talk at the "12th National UC Davis Pre-Health Student Alliance Pre-Medical and Pre-Health Professions Conference".  I normally try to not give talks on weekends (to spend time with my family) but I made an exception here since this meeting has a strong commitment to issues relating to diversity in health and STEM fields.  This mission statement for the meeting reads:

The UC Davis Pre-Health Student Alliance’s objective is to introduce and support academic, admission, and preparatory opportunities for all students interested in health professions with a focus on those underrepresented in healthcare (with regard to gender, economic, social, educational, linguistic, cultural, racial, and ethnic background). We target universities, community colleges and high schools throughout the United States. The UC Davis Pre-Health Student Alliance aims to impact health education, increase diversity amongst the healthcare workforce, and inspire future leaders of healthcare through hosting the largest national pre-health professions conference.

It was that mission statement that got me to ditch my wife and kids Sunday AM (and also much of Saturday PM for a dinner and to work on my talk).  I went to a dinner Saturday for some of the speakers with the new Dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine Julie Freischlag.  The dinner had about 20 or so people and I met some quite interesting folks there working on various aspects of human and animal health.

And then Sunday AM I got up early, decided to use slides (was not sure) and finished off the slide set I had worked on the night before.  I decided that, in the spirit of the meeting, I would talk about two main things - diversity and access.  And I planned to tell three stories about my work in this area.  I wove in some personal stories since, at the dinner the night before Barbara Ross-Lee (who I sat next to) helped remind me of the importance of making talks personal.  So in the end I talked about myself, diabetes, diversity of microbes, antibiotics, diversity in STEM, and open science.  I came up with a title I was OK with: Opening up to Diversity.

My talk went well, I think.  I am pretty sure it was vbideotaped but not sure where that recording will end up. I did however post my slides to slideshare.  See below:

Opening up to Diversity talk by @phylogenomics at #UCDPHSA from Jonathan Eisen

And I also recorded the talk using Camtasia (basically, it allows recording of the screen, the video camera on my computer, and the audio).  I posted the recording (without the video feed which shows mostly my neck) to Youtube.  See below:

UPDATE 10/16 -

I have scanned in my notes that I made in planning this talk.  Figured, why not post them.

Update: 12/10/2014 - just discovered a video of the talk was posted to Youtube 

Me: Will survey results be published openly. Them: yes. Me: OK - will do survey. #opensurveys

Got this email:

Dear Jonathan, 

Your peers at the University of California, Riverside, Stanford University, and the Coachella Valley Association of Governments are seeking participation in a survey designed to explore the relevancy and perceptions of basic natural history knowledge and skills among professionals and graduate students in environmental science-related fields.
Professionals and Faculty (including post-doctoral researchers) may access the survey through the following link:https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9XmYW9WipZ0JGm1 

If you cannot complete the entire survey all at once, you can return to the survey within 30 days to complete it at your convenience. 

This survey will be distributed at universities, organizations and agencies state-wide, and we would greatly appreciate your participation! All responses will be kept completely confidential. The information collected will be used to provide summary statistics and form the basis of a peer-reviewed publication. 

Please feel free to forward this survey link to peers within California that may be interested in participating. Thank you for your assistance! 

****************************************************************************** 

Should you have questions about this study please contact us: natural.history.survey@gmail.com

Michelle Murphy-Mariscal, M.S. (Center for Conservation Biology, UC Riverside)Cameron W. Barrows, Ph.D. (Center for Conservation Biology, UC Riverside)Rebecca Hernandez, Ph.D. (Stanford University, Carnegie Institution for Science)Kathleen Fleming, M.S. (Coachella Valley Association of Governments)

-----------------------------------------
I wrote back

Thanks for the invite.

Can you tell me more about what will happen to the results from the survey? I only participate in surveys if the data and publications from the survey will be released in an open access manner.

Jonathan Eisen

And then got a very pleasing response:

Hi Jonathan, 

Yes, the results and data of the survey will definitely be published. Attached is a previous, survey-based study and we published the data set in Dryad (an online data repository that you are probably familiar with). The survey that my group and I are doing currently will follow the same format and strict adherence to open access. 

Thank you very much for your participation. 

Warmly,
Rebecca

And then I did the survey and sent this email:. 

Thanks so much for the response and I so pleased with your commitment to openness. I will now gladly participate and share w/ California colleagues.