(It’s strange that my post disappeared once)
The Journal of Advances in Linguistics (JAL) ISSN 2348-3024
I received an email from them, too.
At first, I thought it was a great journal to have Impact Factor 1.013
I never thought they had lied!
So, the impact factor is fake and made up by themselves!
I never thought the journal was started in January this year because they are publishing Volume 3 now.
Yes. Sure. I will submit a paper. I always welcome new Journals.
The Editor-in-Chief of the “Life Sciences International Journal” is an assistant professor in a Pakistani agricultural extension department, and the editorial board consists predominantly of Pakistani agricultural scientists. All six of the articles published online in the first issue of this journal are crop science papers, three from the same first author, the other three all from another first author at a different institution, all Pakistani. Crop science is my field: the couple of papers I read were not plagiarized as far as I could ascertain, but are poorly written accounts of low grade research that would not be publishable in established international crop science journals. The “Life Sciences International Journal” website also claims this is the “official journal” of Agrihunt, which appears to be an online portal for agricultural research information almost entirely focused on Pakistan.
Nothing wrong with Pakistani agricultural scientists launching their own journal, but based on this first issue the claim to be an international journal covering all life sciences is overblown to say the least. The attempt to establish legitimacy with a spurious British-sounding publisher name and fake U.K. address is also dubious. I’d like to think this is a well-intentioned attempt to launch a new OA journal and not just another scam, but it looks amateurish and does not appear to have an much of an audience beyond Pakistan.
There are some extremely serious problems that merit immediate listing on the Beall list. In fact, the papers that Sarah points to are only “in press”, and are listed as provisional papers subject to publication, but are not published. In fact, only ONE paper has been published in the latest issue:
http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Volume-8/11/current-issue
However, it is listed as pages 2345-3456. If so, then where is the listing of all the other papers from page 1 to 2344?
In addition, if you click on the “Archive” button, a blank page appears, with the following message “Invalid request. The page you requested not found”. in other words, there is absolutely no way of seeing the thousands of pages likely published in the first 6 volumes. Which could also suggest that 6 previous volumes actually do not exist, and that the “publisher” started with volume 7 in 2014 to feign a long history…
In summary, the public can only observe, from an apparent 7 year history, only ONE paper. Not even the titles, authors’ names or abstracts are available. This is scandalous.
Setting aside the cultural issues, but which simply sounds like more foreigners taking advantage of the British system to launch businesses that are scammy to prop up a flailing economy, there is no information about publication costs, but because this does not seem like an open access publisher, there only appear to be subscription costs for the print copy.
The PDF of the only available paper does not open:
http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Volume-8/11/current-issue
The XTML page is really messy and the text is squashed, making it barely legible.
The thanks to reviewers is pathetic (because actual reviewers are not credited, making the thanks useless):
http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Volume-8/11/thanks-to-reviewers
The editor board reveals an Islamic coalition:
http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Volume-8/11/editorial-board
To answer Beall’s question, I would only submit a false paper to this journal, and invite Bohannon to contribute.
Mr. Shrager, You should spend less time looking at the superficial issues and focus on the details. It is the blind support of such bad publishers like this one (see my criticisms below) that is causing the publishing world to be corrupted. The scientific community believes that valid, academically sound start-ups and more honest journals and publishers are required, and we encourage the start of new OA journals with valid objectives and transparent operations, not this type of publisher with lack of transparency and clearly some pseudo-academic and neo-religious objective. The journals do not appear to have ISSN numbers…
The article in “System Theory” by the author Szőke Dávid Sándor is actually a student work presented at the National Scientific Students’ Associations Conference (Hungary). So basicly, written by someone who is still a BA or a MA student. He must be a brilliant one if the ms passed proper peer review.
Here are few things I would consider:
I will check quality of the peer review by reading the articles and contacting the authors to know their experiences.
Will check quality of copy and layout editing as this editing is the most expensive in overall publication process.
Things everyone should know:
There is no restriction on choosing the company name. Everyone is free as far as name is available for registration.
The use of virtual office is allowed by laws of US, EU, AP and Africa. After all, there is no issue to setup your company office and branch in the global village. Many giant corporations have now added virtual offices in their portfolio. In fact this law is good, because, online environment has no limits, if a business can be established virtually than the business office can also be linked virtually. Virtual office is perfectly legal (US corporate law) even one can register a corporation and issue stock by using virtual office address as company’s headquarter.
The place of publication does not matter, what matters is the quality of publication.
I will give the publishers a chance to prove themselves good for science.
One think more I would like to share, our old friends have now included journal ranking system in the portfolio and offering Journal Classification Index, please see the link http://www.cabells.com/rankings.aspx
Best of luck with your index and standard distribution (z) is a good measure.
I highly appreciate that now the monopolistic journal ranking market is shifting to perfect competition market.
Dear Jeffrey Beal if the pensee journal is fake then what is the original website?
Please help me in this regard…..
Dear Sir/Madam,
Please include our IJDRA Journal in your list of journals.
International Journal of Drug Regulatory Affairs: IJDRA is a Quarterly open access Journal of Regulatory Affairs, Intellectual Property Rights and Pharmaceutical Sciences and intended to be of interest to a broad audience of pharmaceutical professionals. IJDRA was launched in May, 2013 to provide the quality information on the latest cutting-edge technologies of pharmaceutical industry. Content in IJDRA will reflect global initiatives understanding of the Pharma Regulatory Affairs, Intellectual Property Rights & Pharmaceutical Development. IJDRA now ideally placed to serve the needs of their readers and advertisers related to pharmaceutical field.
URL: http://www.ijdra.com
This is a good discussion, and brings out a number of issues in the evolving publishing marketplace. Besides the predators, we are likely to see a lot of new arrangements pop up. Some will be well thought out and others will be amateurish. Who will succeed? Anybody’s guess!
Regarding the name, would you watch a movie starring Marion Mitchell Morrison? I’d rather watch John Wayne. Also, I secretly love Betty Crocker and would like to meet her sometime. Names matter. They define an image. As Joro Paveto points out above, the wrong name can subject a company to discrimination.
An address in a lovely village on the Severn River with a domain registered in Sweden is unusual but not necessarily sinister. This site has all the hallmarks of a startup with a somewhat nebulous business plan. Let’s not laugh yet, because we may find ourselves using their new software!
I don’t see why an author would publish here, though. No track record, but at least they’re honest about it.
Can you supply the links to the journals? What are the two URLs?
Sorry — the invitation didn’t come through.
I analyze at the publisher level whenever possible, so I recommend that you find a better publisher than Science Domain.
Here’s a review I wrote that included this publisher: http://eprints.rclis.org/17051/
Are you sure? This is a list of questionable journals.
Thank you for such a list to provide,
In India, many conferences are linked to these publishers. Many scholars are attending the conferences so that organizing committee gets more profits. Publishers like IRAJ, SARC, ASAR, ITR, ICIMPACT . They organize around 30 international conferences in a hotel every year (not in a institute/college) and publish the articles from research scholars.
Link: http://www.allconferencealerts.com/conference.php?ccid=11
This is happening in india (our country) , Title like “International conference/journal …..” attracts more people and Assistant professors to get promotions requires at least to publish in Non-referred journals, force students to publish in these journals and international conferences. which are mostly predatory journals.—- reason is to get good academic performance indicators (API’s) —
(Link: http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/8539300_English.pdf ). Page 12 tells the reason behind this. People requires journals with ISSN /ISBN number to get the points.
Many of the Institutes organizing international conferences are linked to the predatory journals. Motive is to attract people.
Although India has good researchers and institutes they are no governing bodies to take care of this issues.
I have two relevant experiences.
I “published” my PhD Thesis with VDM. In the past 5 years, they have sold 2-3 copies @ $100/each. I think that sales are slow because I give away the thesis for free online (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1129046). I know one buyer (a lawyer spending client $), but others may be fooled. That’s a pity, but 1,131 people have downloaded my diss for free. Other students should do the same.
I also published both of my books via CreateSpace, which is not at all predatory. I agree that it can be a vanity press, but so is the corner copy-shop. The benefit of CS is HUGE to me, as it allows me to get POD at a low price ($2 or $4 per copy, depending on my book) that I can resell to others as well as sell via Amazon. I think that POD models are MUCH better for the 99% of authors who do not have name-brand recognition. I *was* under contract with UC Press but fired them for (1) no marketing plan, (2) poor technical standards and timing and (3) editorial micromanagement. I’ve outlined the advantages of self publishing (and the publishing industry in general) in these posts:
http://www.aguanomics.com/2011/10/microeconomics-of-publishing.html
http://www.aguanomics.com/2011/10/macroeconomics-of-publishing.html
I wish to give a heads up on a movement that is taking place that could be referred to, in English, as the Islamizaton of Science. The steps that are being taken involve three main steps: a) the physical occupation of traditionally “Western” ideological nations, using numbers; b) the intellectual enforcement, with a religious support and defense basis to avoid being discriminated against; c) the gradual take-over of science and publishing, through the flooding of traditional and open access journals and publishers, providing a rapid form of publication for scientsts from Islamic countries t publish, FREELY while taxing authors coming from Western ideological countries. Mark my words, those who think that this has got to do with simple capitalism and scientific ideologies are being drawn down the wrong rabbit hole. To raise greater awareness, I draw your attention to the following stories, which begin to reveal the greater “plot” against Western (synonymous in several cases with tradtionally Christian) ideologies:
http://news.yahoo.com/birmingham-probes-muslim-takeover-schools-plot-140038655.html
http://org.uib.no/smi/paj/Stenberg.html
http://www.hilalplaza.com/Islamization-Of-Sciences.aspx
http://www.cis-ca.org/reviews/4-pos.htm
http://www.metanexus.net/essay/islamization-science-crisis-knowledge
http://i-epistemology.net/science-a-technology/311-the-islamization-of-the-sciences-its-philosophy-and-methodology.html
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-islamization-of-europe-revives-anti-semitism/
http://www.islam-watch.org/NoSharia/PreventEuropeIslamization1.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/islamization-of-europe-the-numbers-dont-lie/
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2012/May/Wilders-Islamization-of-Europe-Can-Happen-in-America/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_knowledge
http://www.ismailfaruqi.com/news/dr-ismail-al-faruqis-approach-to-islamization-of-knowledge/
http://www.islamweb.net/womane/nindex.php?page=readart&id=186277
http://www.witness-pioneer.net/vil/Articles/education/from_islamization_of_knowledge.htm
And many more…
This is not a homophobic or Islamophobic post. It is a serious call to re-assess some of the “predatory” OA journals as being part of a wider plan that 99% are not aware of.
I plan to publish a blog post about Avens on Thursday. I think both their Los Angeles and Massachusetts addresses were/are dishonest. The Massachusetts one is a house. This publisher operates out of Hyderabad, India.
Don’t worry, the electromagnetic spectrum is color-blind.
