Comments for Scholarly Open Access

Please do not submit any papers to this publisher.

This is an interesting discussion, and I’m pasting here an email I had written to a Frontiers editor when asked to be involved in arranging a ‘research topic’, which I see as a ‘bordering on cynical’ device for generating income. For this reason, I do not submit nor review for Frontiers even though I am funded for covering publication costs.

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In my field, the ‘research topics’ initiative, I think, is having potentially damaging effects. It seems the barrier for contacting a potential ‘topics’ organizer is quite low, perhaps necessitating as much as publishing one prior work in the area (My ex-research assistant was contacted!). Then, we get posts on mailing lists inviting the community to contribute ‘papers’ to a frontiers issue, which turns out to be a ‘topic’. From that point on, I suspect the topic organizers feel some pressure to accept at least some papers, and I end up seeing quite a bit of sub-par work. What bothers me is that I see no reason for Frontiers to filter work, because at the end of the day it earns money from accepted papers. There is an enormous amount of topics: more than 70 different ones just in ‘frontiers in physiology [H.B: updated: 133 as of Feb 1, 2014, of them 32 currently accepting abstracts]’. Multiply that by X papers per topic by Y $$ per paper and frontiers is surviving the economic crisis.. So beyond the hype, I see ‘topics’ as a system for Frontiers to recruit articles by leveraging scientists’ need to be ever more visible in a competitive environment where success for one’s idea in the ‘idea marketplace’ can benefit from visibility in any form.

[…] emerged among the serious brands in the space, offering their own prestige. Many others have been labeled predatory for charging researchers for the privilege of publication, among other questionable […]

[…] Even among open access journals, a sharp divergence in quality is already becoming apparent. The Public Library for Science, BioMed Central and eLife have emerged among the serious brands in the space, offering their own prestige. Many others have been labeled predatory for charging researchers for the privilege of publication, among other questionable practices. […]

Pls check coz International Journal of Architectural Research is not in that new tands website and we need to know coz not many journals for architecture. Thank u

Hi Dr. Beall, how about this journal http://www.ijcait.com/IJCAIT/index.php/www-ijcs
International Journal in Computer Application and Information Technology. Can you review its authenticity?

[…] Corporation. Ne connaissant pas ce journal, ni cet éditeur, je me suis rendu sur la liste de Jeffrey Beall recensant les « éditeurs prédateurs » afin de vérifier qu’Hindawi ne faisait pas partie de cette liste. Apparemment non, mais voici ce […]

Dear Mr. Beall, can you tell me about the status of premier Publishers? I want to submit my article to http://premierpublishers.org/ijaee/submit-manuscript, however I need the status of the journal before I do that. Thanks a lot. You have aver good job!

Recently members of academic staff of my faculty have being witch-haunted by media for publishing in journals of questionable rating. Can anyone provide me with a comprehensive statement that this is an issue of authors being victims rather than profiting unethically from scam journals?

But why would you think they are mistaken? Please give reasons. Its Thomas Reuters we are talking about here, not just an individual’s assessment. There is also another journal from Africa under pharmacy with an assigned IF, Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research. What are your thoughts on this one?

Yes its indexed in the 2011 and 2012 JCR with an IF of 0.8. Except if the pdf list flying around is fake. I would also be very grateful if a non-predatory list is posted on this website and not a link to a university-affliated list of discounted OA journals. Great job. This whole predatory thing is an eye opener.

[…] Open Access pateikiantis informaciją apie nesąžiningus akademinius leidėjus. Ilgame Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers sąraše galite pasitikrinti, gal ant atvirosios prieigos bangos „atplaukė“ apsišaukėlis, […]

Dear Dr. Beall, Do you know much about this OA publisher New World Publishing LLC (http://www.newworldpub.com/) ? Its journals have no editorial board nor content. BTW, thank you for the terrific job you have done here!

I was wondering this too. Turns out Mr. Beall was interviewed over at Nature and said he reviewed Hindawi and decided to remove it from the list: http://www.nature.com/news/investigating-journals-the-dark-side-of-publishing-1.12666

Dear Dr Beall,

Is this a Predatory Publisher (www.novapublishers.com)? I just got an invitation to participate in their publishing program.

Sincerely,

Welko Tomic
v.tomic@online.nl

[…] peer-reviewed journals. According to the report, Gashi has three articles published in theInternational Journal of Engineering and Management Sciences, a journal published by the Lucknow, India-based publisher Society for Science and […]

Thanks for catching that. I missed it. An excellent observation!

Because you also provide answer about conference, what do you think about this conference:
20th ICE Conference – IEEE TMC Europe Conference
23-25 June 2014, Bergamo, Italy
link: http://www.ice-conference.org/

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