Academic Recycling as a new reality: defining digital identity of a modern researcher

Publications make an integral part of the research trajectory as they make the researchers and their findings visible in the global academic world; they construe, directly and indirectly, researchers’ digital identity. Academic recycling is an emerging tendency in the academic world that should be challenged. The paper focuses on the current academic practices and on how they affect the researchers’ digital identity formed by a variety of parameters as follows: generation of one’s academic profile, digital web engines search and research, and one’s publication practices. Living in the global information environment gave rise to the challenges related to defining the researchers’ status referring to those directly defining the authors’ identity: the so-called visibility, as well as some characteristics that indirectly define the identity though inference. The first cluster involves the authors’ profiles on publications, affiliation and other metadata. The second cluster covers the parameters that call for special attention, especially in the long-term perspective. The methods used to pursue the objectives involve analyzing the digital identity of a modern researcher: deduce the requirements the authors’ profile is to meet, his/her stance and reputation in the global academic environment. The ways to challenge such predator practices as recycling publishing, as well as their triggering factors are analyzed relying on the still underestimated antiplagiarism resource as an efficient filter. The research proposes a structure of a modern scientists’ digital profile as a combination of objective data and information related to academic ethical practice (plagiarism, different types of self-plagiarism, such as academic recycling, translation plagiarism). The conclusion is that the visibility requirements involve relying on objective criteria as well as on the ethical spectrum related to academic publications and academic recycling to the utmost degree.