There is enormous pressure to publish these days, even at underfunded universities. It distracts from the mission of the institution (are we fundraising or teac

There is enormous pressure to publish these days, even at underfunded universities. It distracts from the mission of the institution (are we fundraising or teaching?) and gives all the wrong incentives to faculty. Someone may wish to do a decent job teaching, it's a teaching college after all, but is forced by the higher-ups to publish junk like this. Others may even believe the crap they are doing is legit. British ex-polytechnics have it especially bad, they were teaching institutions and declared universities in 1992 and forced to compete for funding with the established universities. (OK, Keele isn't an ex-poly, but it was never good or adequately funded.) You can't take everything serious that's printed, there is too much junk out there, and then you have to go by heuristics, like journal or affiliation. That's how the "invisible boot" works.