My Dear Beall,
(As I have not got any reply link, below our conversation. I am replying in this manner). Thank you so much for you courtesy to reply and flexibility to consider my suggestions. I also appreciate that you acknowledge that you have made many mistakes and you are not perfect (Reference: https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/sparc-oaforum/t4rMZuPmdS4). This flexibility is really commendable. Coming to the pint, I believe that It is not that much important that I give you a list of 5/10 probable genuine ‘new players’ and you accept (or reject my list by strongly defending your inclusion decision). I honestly don’t want to create another ‘Khan’s list’ against ‘Beall’s list’. It is more important to create an environment / appeal procedure / curing procedure to heal this disease from academic publishing. It is not you or me or someone else to judge the good wishes of the new players. It is the ‘new players’ who has to prove themselves that they honestly want to shed the predatory label and appeal for the same and abide by the stringent standard industry rules of scholarly publishing. History teaches us that ‘hating and isolation’ do not permanently solve a problem. I know that everybody is aware of the great lessons taught by Lord Budhha, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, etc. Now it is time to apply these lessons to cure this disease. Political history also teaches us that ‘suppression and isolation’ can not cure terrorism’. Only real social and economic development can solve the problem of terrorist prone area. Similarly by isolation and defamation of new inexperienced publishers (leave some real criminals) will not solve this so called ‘predatory’ problem (it may only aggravate it and an endless counter-hate campaign will start). We have to develop a system to correct (or at least to minimize) the errors of these new players. So that one day these new publishers will become responsible publishers. As I have previously mentioned, that competition is healthy and only this competition can eventually bring down the cost of Open Access Publishing to 200-450 US$ from presently estimated 1500-2000 £ (Reference Finch report and Danielle Moran http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/12/19/taylor-cost-publish-gold-open-access/). And I see that most of this competition is bound to come from developing countries, where chances to lower the processing cost are more. (Recollect how the great revolution came in software, hardware and IT industry in China, India, Taiwan, etc. I think that 20 years back nobody could have imagined it or believed it). Nobody can stop this industry trend and the rules of economics will propel these developments in the scholarly publishing industry. Now it will be more wise decision not to try to stop this development but to guide this development in proper direction. So that this future development (in scholarly publishing in the developing countries) take a proper shape. Personally I have great respect for the works of Beall. Kudos to Beall for the laborious work he has done for last 3 years (Reference: http://scholarlyoa.com/about/). But presently I believe that Beall’s list is not now only ‘Beall’s personal list’. Knowingly or unknowingly Beall has discovered the gold mine of faults of new gold open access publishers. He has intelligently coined the term predatory, which is essentially rediscovery of vanity press, existed long back in subscription as well as new author pays model (Reference: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/03/06/predatory-open-access-publishers-the-natural-extreme-of-an-author-pays-model/#comment-44652). Pertaining to great media coverage and wide acceptance, it has got much larger dimension (Reference: http://www.nature.com/news/predatory-publishers-are-corrupting-open-access-1.11385). Leaving the dimension of an individual, Beall has now himself became an ‘organization’. Now this larger than life image of Jeffrey Beall calls person Beall to organize this Unorganized sector. I know that it is almost impossible to do this tough job alone. I have some proposals. (OASPA may have competing interest issue here, as the board of that organization is from the related industry only (Reference: http://oaspa.org/about/board/))
Step 1: Develop an evaluation board of appeals of these predatory publishers.
Proposed members of the Expert committee:
1. Peter Suber (Director of the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP))
2. Stevan Harnad (Canada Research Chair in cognitive science at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton)
3. David Solomon, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University, E. Lansing, MI USA and Author of The Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing
4. Bo‐Christer Björk (Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland)
5. Lars Bjørnshauge (Ex. Director of Lund Libraries)
6. Mike Taylor, open access advocate from University of Bristol
7. Jeffrey Beall (Team leader) (Due to his vast experience in this predatory open access publishing issue) (Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver)
8. Richard Poynder, Journalist widely respected for his independence, even-handedness, analysis, careful interviews, and detailed research
Step 2: Develop systematic procedure to evaluate appeals of so called predatory publishers (You can take some help from these references: http://openbiomed.info/2012/04/shed-predatory-open-peer-review/ and comments section of the link: http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/08/04/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-access-publishers/ )
Step 3: There should be some application process to get removed from your list. Publishers should apply officially
Step 3: An expert committee should evaluate the applications and announce the result on quarterly basis. Some application charges may be formulated to cover the cost of this total operation and related website.
I hope that academicians and Open access publishing world will remember you for ever if you can cure this infectious disease of predatory criminal academic publishing.
