The reporter's investigation found that academician Zhong Nanshan's open-source free papers on the treatment of academician Xin guanyeshan obtained the papers that need to be paid on HowNet. HowNet not only makes profit by using the papers of well-known experts and scholars, but also collects the degree papers of college students and sells them for money. A doctoral student of Beijing Foreign Studies University revealed in every wechat interview that his paper was included in HowNet in March, but he didn't get any income.
Every reporter's investigation found that the gross profit margin of HowNet was as high as 53.35%, and nearly 90% of A-share listed companies were "crushed".
Zhong Nanshan's many open source papers need to be obtained at the HowNet master station
Every reporter's in-depth investigation found that in the HowNet platform, there are two situations of charging and not charging for the same article: articles that are completely free in their foreign library should be paid to download at the main site.
There are two ways to query the foreign periodical literature included in HowNet:
- Through the main site of the official website( https://www.cnki.net/ ) Search query
The main station mainly collects articles published in domestic journals, and a considerable part of the articles need to be charged.
- Through the academic search site (foreign language database, https://scholar.cnki.net/ ) Search query
The site mainly collects articles published by foreign publishers, and provides jump links (DOI, unique identifier of digital objects) to foreign journal databases. The fees are subject to foreign publishers.
Taking an English journal article "preliminary evidence from a multicenter prospective observational study of the safety and efficacy of chloroquine for the treatment of covid-19" jointly signed by academician Zhong Nanshan as an example, the article needs to pay 4.5 yuan to obtain in the "Journal" database of the main website of HowNet, However, in the foreign language periodical Library of HowNet, you can directly jump to the foreign database open access (OA, hereinafter referred to as OA, that is, readers can read for free).
However, when searching the above articles at the main site of HowNet, the column of "general library" shows that there is only one paid article, which does not prompt that a free article with exactly the same content is also included in the foreign library.
Another article jointly signed by academician Zhong Nanshan, "strategies for reopening in the forward coming covid-19 era in China", also has the above situation. It needs to charge 1 yuan at the main site of HowNet, and you can directly jump to the foreign periodical library for free reading in the foreign library.
Each reporter also found that the above two articles written by academician Zhong Nanshan were published in the National Science Review (NSR), which was commissioned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Science and technology publishing media Co., Ltd. to be published by Oxford University Press around the world. Oxford University Press and science of China announced in 2019 that NSR was published as a fully open access journal.
Each reporter contacted the website director, sales and marketing department and information science sub Journal of China Science magazine respectively. The staff said on the phone that the journal articles can be downloaded free of charge on the official website of China Science magazine, but they were not clear about the charge of HowNet and the content of cooperation with HowNet.
In addition to academician Zhong Nanshan's paper, in 2021, a new English article "no benefits from warning even for Subnival vegetation in the central Himalayas", jointly signed by park Shilong, 45, the "youngest academician of the two academies" and many scholars, was added. The English title was searched through the main website of HowNet, and the paid article with Chinese title was displayed by default.
In the "Journal" Library of HowNet's main site, the original English title of the article was hidden and presented with the Chinese title of "Himalayan Alpine Periglacial plants do not benefit from warming (English)", which requires paying 2.5 yuan to buy the article. The foreign language database of HowNet can be directly transferred to foreign databases for free.
Every search by the reporter found that many English articles signed by academician Pu Shilong and academician Zhong Nanshan can indeed download the full text free of charge on the official website of science of China.
Collect college students' papers for profit, and you also need to pay for downloading your own papers
HowNet also has the problem of collecting dissertations of college students for profit.
A doctoral student of Beijing Foreign Studies University revealed in every wechat interview that his paper was included in HowNet in March, but he didn't get any income.
The reporter inquired about the "notice on receiving remuneration for dissertations" on HowNet's official website and found that the copyright owner of the doctoral thesis can obtain 400 yuan of "CNKI network database general search reading card" and 100 yuan of cash remuneration. If the value is simply added, it is only 500 yuan, which is the highest remuneration paid by HowNet for academic papers.
At the end of the above notice, it reads: "please confirm that the author of the published dissertation will contact our society immediately to receive the remuneration".
In other words, the author also needs to contact HowNet to get remuneration.
The aforementioned doctoral student of Beijing Foreign Studies University told reporters that she was completely unaware of the compensation.
The reporter searched on the social platform and found that this is not an example. Some users even said that they need to pay for downloading their own papers.
Every time the reporter inquires about the "China HowNet member traffic billing standard table" on the official website of HowNet, it is found that the billing standard for the regular digital publishing and downloading of the full text of the journal is 0.5 yuan / page, the master's thesis is 7.5 yuan / copy, and the doctoral thesis is 9.5 yuan / copy. Before the price adjustment at the end of last year, the master's and doctoral dissertations were 15 yuan / copy and 25 yuan / copy respectively.
The reporter randomly found a paper with high download volume on Zhiwang. It was signed by Chen Hao's doctoral thesis "optimal management of fuel cell / lithium battery hybrid system" of Zhejiang University. The download volume was 1810 times and the download cost was 9.5 yuan / copy. Theoretically, the above paper can bring about 17195 yuan to HowNet. However, for Chen Hao, the author of the doctoral thesis, he can only get a 400 yuan recharge card and a 100 yuan cash reward.
Dialogue HowNet: searching through the foreign library is free. Why do you charge through the main station
Recently, the reporter contacted HowNet customer service as a consumer to reflect the above related problems. The following is the QQ chat record between the reporter of daily economic news (hereinafter referred to as NBD) and the manual customer service of HowNet readers (hereinafter referred to as HowNet):
NBD: for the same article, there is a charge for searching through the Journal on the HowNet home page. If you enter through the HowNet foreign library, you can directly lead to the original source of Elsevier (Foreign Journal). Why is there a charge for journals through the main site, while searching through the foreign library is free?
HowNet: Hello, the teacher in charge of this hair has checked the reason. Can I refund this for you? Generally, there will be no such situation. Check the reason, whether there is an error on the Internet or something.
NBD: what is an Internet error? I checked many papers by the way, and I said this situation. Is this still an Internet error?
HowNet: maybe because the website of HowNet center is collected in cooperation with this magazine, it is paid. The website of foreign language source is not owned by their magazine, so it is free.
Are there many articles? This seems to belong to Elsevier too. The source of the foreign library is Elsevier, which is free. The library on the homepage of HowNet is the source of the magazine, so it is charged. This may be the reason. You need to check with the responsible teacher.
NBD: so why is Elsevier free and the magazine source charged? What is the reason why HowNet magazine source charges?
HowNet: HowNet signs a contract with the editorial department of the magazine to pay copyright fees for articles of the magazine. There are also magazine fees, so they are charged.
NBD: as an individual reader / user, I can get Elsevier's source for free through HowNet's external library. Why do I need to pay for downloading through HowNet magazine's source?
HowNet: I don't know the details.