Jeffrey Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers, 2012 Edition

Perhaps you remember that I previously wrote [1] about  non-existing and/or low quality scammy open access journals. I specifically wrote about Medical Science Journals of  the http://www.sciencejournals.cc/ series, which comprises 45 titles, none of which having published any article yet.

Another blogger, David M [2] also had negative experiences with fake peer review invitations from sciencejournals. He even noticed plagiarism.

Later I occasionally found other posts about open access spam, like the post of Per Ola Kristensson [3] (specifically about Bentham, Hindawi and InTech OA publishers), of Peter Murray-Rust [4] ,a chemist interested in OA (about spam journals and conferences, specifically about Scientific Research Publishing) and of Alan Dove PhD [5] (specifically about The Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research (JCBBR) published by Academic Journals).

But now it appears that there is an entire list of “Predatory, Open-Access Publishers”. This list was created by Jeffrey Beall, academic librarian at the University of Colorado Denver. He just updated the list for 2012 here (PDF-format).

According to Jeffrey predatory, open-access publishers

are those that unprofessionally exploit the author-pays model of open-access publishing (Gold OA) for their own profit. Typically, these publishers spam professional email lists, broadly soliciting article submissions for the clear purpose of gaining additional income. Operating essentially as vanity presses, these publishers typically have a low article acceptance threshold, with a false-front or non-existent peer review process. Unlike professional publishing operations, whether subscription-based or ethically-sound open access, these predatory publishers add little value to scholarship, pay little attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-by-night, unsustainable business models.

Jeffrey recommends not to do business with the following (illegitimate) publishers, including submitting article manuscripts, serving on editorial boards, buying advertising, etc. According to Jeffrey, “there are numerous traditional, legitimate journals that will publish your quality work for free, including many legitimate, open-access publishers”.

(For sake of conciseness, I only describe the main characteristics, not always using the same wording; please see the entire list for the full descriptions.)

• Academic Journals  bogus, Nigeria-based publisher
• Academic Journals, Inc. One of several Pakistan-based publishers
• Academic Research Publishing Agency* Full of contradictions. Subscription fee $400/yr
• ANSINetwork Another of the Pakistan-based brands
• Bentham Open continues to expand its fleet of journals, now >230
• Center for Promoting Ideas* list scholars on editorial boards without their permission
• David Publishing*
• Dove Press demands a very high author fee for publishing articles.
• GlobalOpenJournals.org* currently has nine titles, .. all remain devoid of content
• Insight Knowledge really is a storefront type operation based out of Pakistan
• Institute of Advanced Scientific Research* Few of the titles have any content, registering required
• InTech Open Access Publisher* Croatia-based, vanity press
• International Digital Organization for Scientific Information* charges (for authors) aren’t listed
• International Research Journals journal covers from pirated photographs
• Internet Scientific Publications makes money from click-through ads
• Knowledgia Scientific (~ Review) (some) titles have very little content
• Libertas Academia  Based in New Zealand, .. Author fees are high
• Medwell Journals Another Pakistan-based outfit
• OMICS Publishing Group about 200 journal titles, many lacking any articles…falsely claims an association with certain  publishers/organizations
• ScienceHuβ * likely yet another Nigeria scam
• Science Publications Contact us” page is merely a web form
• ScienceDomain International* short acceptance period, indicating bogus
• Scientific Journals International a one-man operation, many non-standard practices
• Scientific Research Publishing  over 100 journal titles, most started in 2009

Watchlist: Publishers, that may show some characteristics of  predatory, open-access publisher

• Hindawi Way too many journals than can be properly handled by one publisher
• MedKnow Publications vague business model. It charges for the PDF version
• PAGEPress many dead links, a prominent link to PayPal
• Versita Open paid subscription for print form. ..unclear business model

An asterisk (*) indicates that the publisher is appearing on this list for the first time.

How complete and reliable is this list?

Clearly, this list is quite exhaustive. Jeffrey did a great job listing  many dodgy OA journals. We should watch (many) of these OA publishers with caution. Another good thing is that the list is updated annually.

(http://www.sciencejournals.cc/ described in my previous post is not (yet) on the list 😉  but I will inform Jeffrey).

Personally, I would have preferred a distinction between real bogus or spammy journals and journals that seem to have “too many journals to properly handle” or that ask (too much ) money for subscription/from the author. The scientific content may still be good (enough).

Furthermore, I would rather see a neutral description of what is exactly wrong about a journal. Especially because “Beall’s list” is a list and not a blog post (or is it?). Sometimes the description doesn’t convince me that the journal is really bogus or predatory.

Examples of subjective portrayals:

• Dove Press:  This New Zealand-based medical publisher boasts high-quality appearing journals and articles, yet it demands a very high author fee for publishing articles. Its fleet of journals is large, bringing into question how it can properly fulfill its promise to quickly deliver an acceptance decision on submitted articles.
• Libertas Academia “The tag line under the name on this publisher’s page is “Freedom to research.” It might better say “Freedom to be ripped off.” 
• Hindawi  .. This publisher has way too many journals than can be properly handled by one publisher, I think (…)

I do like funny posts, but only if it is clear that the post is intended to be funny. Like the one by Alan Dove PhD about JCBBR.

JCBBR is dedicated to increasing the depth of research across all areas of this subject.

Translation: we’re launching a new journal for research that can’t get published anyplace else.

The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area.

We’ll take pretty much any crap you excrete.

Hattip: Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD at the MedLib-L list.

References & related articles

1. I Got the Wrong Request from the Wrong Journal to Review the Wrong Piece. The Wrong kind of Open Access Apparently, Something Wrong with this Inherently… (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
2. A peer-review phishing scam (blog.pita.si)
3. Academic Spam and Open Access Publishing (blog.pokristensson.com)
4. What’s wrong with Scholarly Publishing? New Journal Spam and “Open Access” (blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk)
5. From the Inbox: Journal Spam (alandove.com)
6. Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers. 2012 Edition (http://metadata.posterous.com)
7. Silly Sunday #42 Open Access Week around the Globe (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)