Month: November 2013 | Emerald City Journal

New Open-Access Publisher: Stringer Open

Published on November 26, 2013

We recently learned about a new scholarly open-access publisher whose name sounds very much like that of an established scholarly publisher.

It is Stringer Open, and of course it sounds like Springer Open.

The victim.

Stringer Open has just launched with ten journals, some with ungrammatical titles, and some with titles that make little sense, such as the International Journal of Addiction Science and Anesthesiology.

The publisher’s ‘contact us’ page does not state any location, but the domain name registration leads to an apartment complex in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. There are many predatory publishers from Andhra Pradesh, and it seems everyone there wants to be a scholarly publisher.

Stringer Open is currently spamming for editorial board members, and I wonder how many will be tricked by the similar name. The boards now contain a few members each. The same person, Carol Calini, is on the editorial boards of three of the ten Stringer Open journals. I contacted her, and she told me she’s a researcher’s secretary and had not heard of this publisher before.

This publisher is an affront to scholarly publishing and to open-access. I strongly recommend against submitting papers to any of its journals and against accepting an invitation to serve on an editorial board.

Hat tip: Tero Kivelä

Appendix: List of Stringer Open journals as of November 23, 2013:
1.International Journal of Addiction Science and Anesthesiology
2.International Journal of Cancer Therapy & Stem Cell Biology
3.International Journal of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
4.International Journal of Clinical and Medical Case Reports
5.International Journal of Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome
6.International Journal of HIV for Clinical and Scientific Research
7.International Journal of Novel Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation
8.International Journal of Ophthalmology and Clinical Research
9.International Journal of Vaccines and Immunology
10.Journal of Genetics and Gene Therapy

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Comments:

Jeffrey Beall says:

November 26, 2013 at 9:43 AM

There’s no scoring system. As you can see, the criteria are subjective. In most cases, the evaluation is very easy because the publishers engage in salient deception and lack of transparency. My intent is to only include the worst of the worst on the lists. I refrain from adding borderline publishers/journals to the lists.

Maureen O’Malley says:

November 29, 2013 at 6:18 PM

I wouldn’t say this is a ‘subjective’ classification. I think you mean these are qualitative categories to which journals are matched on the basis of available evidence. Too many matches and the journal gets a ‘predatory’ classification. Because anyone in the community can use these qualitative categories for evaluation purposes, they can’t be ‘subjective’ in the sense of only one person being able to justify the ranking. I have read many evaluations, seen how many of the journals fall into various of these categories, and agree wholeheartedly with the classification. Using ‘subjective’ makes it seem like mere impressionistic opinion, which the classification system is not. And in case anyone worries about not enough evidence being used, the appeal process can provide more/different evidence, and the classification potentially adjusted.

Jeffrey Beall says:

November 29, 2013 at 6:19 PM

Thank you!

Samir Hachani says:

November 26, 2013 at 9:49 AM

It is science with a string !!!!!

David Ryan says:

November 26, 2013 at 10:05 AM

This is just what you do, defending well-stablished journals… I guess they pay you well…

Samir Hachani says:

November 26, 2013 at 12:07 PM

@David Ryan ?????????

Divya Nimesh says:

December 7, 2013 at 12:42 PM

air ..also give the information about well established and authenticated journals and open access academic publishing websites regarding law or legal publishing (with free open access publishing)…..hope u ll give that..

Kovo Godfrey says:

December 22, 2013 at 8:56 AM

Please can u send the full list of journals to be avoided to my mail. Also i want to find out if the pacific journal of science and technology is in ur list. Thank you

Jeffrey Beall says:

December 22, 2013 at 9:20 AM

The lists are freely available online. I haven’t heard of the PJST before but will have a look at it.

Ed Murray New Seattle Mayor

Published on November 6, 2013

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

Mike McGinn is out and our new Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is in the house. History hasn’t been good to previous Mayors in-fact the last 3 have consecutively been voted out after their re-election attempts. Mr. Ed Murray won with approx. 56% of the vote. His election win makes him Seattle’s 53rd Mayor and also the first openly gay Mayor. Reviewing the election he simply had more support and being someone who is fresh/new really won him this election. He even had the full support of Seattle’s Chamber of Commerce which is a big deal in my opinion. Another concept he preached was “collaboration over confrontation”. Voters can really related to that and are fed up with all the feuding in politics right now from both sides. In just the last few days of the race there was a Washington Post article which stated several of the large telecom companies were supporting Ed Murray over McGinn which just pushed it in Mr. Murray’s favor even more.

Personally, I’m just happy to write about someone else for a while. I’m not a big supporter for either right now honestly and I do believe that the average Joe off the street would get us all better results but that simply will not happen this day and age.

I give everyone a fair shot and if they do a great job and make positive changes I will be the first to support them fully. I do have a few concerns one being his long history in state politics. Some view this as positive but for me that is a obvious negative. Our state is in horrible shape and being involved for so long (18 years as a law maker) that would mean he was part of that effort. Having done that for so long, I have my doubts he is in the loop of what the average worker needs and feels in their daily lives. Both Mike McGinn and Ed Murray support the $15 per hour minimum wage increase. Just him making a stance to support it and going along with Mike McGinn makes him suspicious. Obviously he just wanted that issue to be an even playing field (vote numbers) and it was a wise choice for him to take that stance politically. It is a sign, however, that he is savvy and playing the game of politics. The truth is $15 per hour minimum wage is scam to get more tax revenue out of the workers paychecks. It’s a huge boost of revenue actually. If you’re trying to find a job it doesn’t make sense because it only makes it more difficult for you. It’s a scam and shouldn’t be supported.

I found that Ed Murray’s election campaign was very “play it safe” and identical to Mike McGinns thoughts about issues.

Welcome to the Emerald City Journal Mayor Ed Murray I hope my thoughts and opinions about you are not true. I support you fully to do the right things for this city. Don’t play the political games. Be real, open, honest, and 100% transparent. Make your budgets and request for funds open to public review and you’ll be very successful here.

Warning About Cindy Smith Cleaning Services

Published on November 4, 2013

Cindy-Smith-Cleaning-Services-Seattle

I never dreamed that if I hired a cleaning service they would try to take me to the cleaners instead. I am elderly and do my own cooking, light cleaning etc but can no longer clean behind the toilet, under the bathtub so I hire someone to that. I had a regular lady that had helped me before several years but she got sick and could no longer do that. I was leery about Seattle.Craigslist.org so I went through an employment agency. I chose Thumb Tack. they send you the resumes of 4 and you can choose one by what they wrote. At least this agency would know that this stranger was to be at my house at a certain time if something happened. I chose Cindy Smith. She came right on time and was as nice as could be. I wanted my windows done on the inside and the paper changed under my kitchen cabinet and behind the toilet and under the tub cleaned. She started in the bathroom. She has two big green garbage bags. No mops or brooms. She says she does everything on her hands and knees. One bag is for her clean rags, one for the dirty ones. I never thought anything about that, but over two hours went by and I never heard a sound of water running or toilet lids closing and I thought OMG maybe she fainted or something, but she had everything out of my medicine cabinet and was washing the cough syrup bottles, etc. I said geez I did not want you to even open those doors. I can do that kind of cleaning if I want it done. It was noon then. She put it back in and did finally clean the toilet etc She said her job is to clean top to bottom and that included inside cabinets. I said no not at my house. I think looking back she was looking for drugs. Well she did not find any. I don’t take tranquilizers, sleeping pills, pain pills or a thing. but man with big garbage bags it would sure be easy to slip in some of a guys pills and you would never know. She finally got to the kitchen and it was 6 o clock and I told her to just go and we would finish another day. She did good where she cleaned, I have no complaint with that. I didn’t get the windows washed or stuff I wanted done but sure have clean shampoo and hand lotion bottles. lol Anyway, the gist of my story is this. She came one time and it was a Saturday. I made an appointment for the next month on the 19th Less than a week later I get this e mail (see below).

Good evening Lilly,

How are you holding up in this heat? 🙂 I got you message about the 19th, I will also email you a day ahead for reminding 🙂 I shall tackle more for you on the 19th too 🙂

Do you know of ANYBODY that can help me with a personal loan and I pay them back with agreement. My Ex Husband stole a lot of money from me and my house payment was in it 🙁 If I don’t make my house payment by this weekend, I am going to Lose my home 🙁

I have a $ 3500 contract check that I am waiting for, I don’t receive it until the end of the month. I will pay back the payment as soon as I receive my check.

My Ex Husband Really messed me over!!

I am so Desperate, I am trying anywhere. I don’t know what else to do.

Do you know of anybody?? I am Reliable.

Thanks Lilly 🙂

She really tried to manufacture a tear jerker on an old lady knowing we are from an era that we would help anyone asked. Or I would feel sorry for her and help. She must have thought I had STUPID written on my forehead because my house and furniture sure does not look like I am someone that would have an extra thousand or two to hand out to a stranger. I have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and a great great grandchild to give any excess money I might ever have to give to. She did not specify how much the house payment was. But lets guess it’s around $2,000. This was a Friday night I got her email, and wouldn’t you think that was cutting the time pretty short if she would lose her house the next day? First real red flag. She wanted a personal loan to be paid back with agreement. What the heck that means I don’t know. Said she had a $3500 contract check. I don’t believe that either but she could sure take it to Money Tree if she had it and SAVE HER HOUSE.

She told me when she was working she raised her children alone and they were grown and she was a grandma so it’s funny the Ex-Husband suddenly appeared and she just happened to have the house payment in plain sight. She simply wanted a handout. She would have taken any amount I might have said I could spare and I would never see her again. I decided not to get into a conversation with her at all and simply wrote

CANCEL MY SEPTEMBER 19TH APPOINTMENT. But she emailed again. see below.

Are you okay?

I wasn’t asking for you to help me, maybe you or somebody knew of a loan officer or a really good resource that can direct me in the right direction for a home loan? 🙂

If she wasn’t asking me to help her, why did she ever send me the first e mail. This e mail was sent to me on Saturday right after noon and she is looking for a loan officer or good resource (what does this mean) for a home loan. Remember this was the weekend she had to make the payment or lose her home and its Saturday noon already. lol How many good loan officers does any old woman know? She should have walked into a bank and asked for a loan officer. Of course she was not looking for a loan, she may not even own a house, don’t know don’t care but anyone that desperate to scam an old 90 year old woman should not be turned loose in anyone’s house with two big garbage bags.

Her cleaning was fine, she was nice, and I don’t think she stole a thing and for sure I did not loan/give her any money but the fact that she would ask makes me branded her as not someone I would recommend.

Just wanted to share.

Lilly

November 2013

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