Amateurish New OA Publisher Claims Association with Elsevier

There’s a new open-access publisher that claims it is cooperating with Elsevier, but I think the claim is highly unlikely. The publisher — Qingres — claims it’s based in the UK, another claim I find doubtful.

The publisher’s main page has a rotating banner at the top with two slides. One (shown above) proclaims its purported association with Elsevier, and the other invites researchers to submit manuscripts to “Create a SCI journal with high impact factors.”

The publisher launched with seven medical journals, all broad in scope and all in disciplines already saturated with journals — there’s no need for these new ones.

The website is adorned with logos from legitimate companies and organizations, and there’s a long list of “Cooperative Institutions.”

The publisher has Photo shopped its name on a picture of a building somewhere, the second time I’ve seen this deception.

Qingres makes several mentions of SCI and impact factors on the website. At the bottom of some pages this statement appears:

We only wish the impact factor of this Journal to go up with time elapse!

In fact, the publisher has waived fees until the journals get indexed in SCI, something I estimate will take a very long time, if it ever occurs. In the “authors’ guide” for one of the journals, the publisher says,

The publication for JPBS is now free of charge. After it has been included in SCI, the publication fee would be charged.

They also reveal their lack of publishing experience by giving contradictory licensing policies. In one place they say, “Editors/authors who contribute in the JPBS will transfer copyright of their work to the JPBS publisher.” But in another place they say, “The majority of authors retain copyright for their articles and our standard license allows liberal reuse rights.”

The publisher’s internet domain name data is blinded, except for this:

Registrant Name: huifang jiao

Qingres — the name is not explained — is an optimistic yet poorly-conceived open-access startup. I recommend that researchers not submit manuscripts to its journals and decline invitations to serve on its editorial boards.

Hat tip: Dr. Judit Ward, et al.

Appendix: List of Qingres journals as of 2016-09-24:
1.Journal of Biomedical Frontiers
2.Journal of International Medical Analysis
3.Journal of Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine
4.Journal of Precision Medicine
5.Journal of Psychiatry and Brain Science
6.Med One
7.Pharmaceutical Frontiers

By: Jeffrey Beall
Follow on Twitter
Source: Scholarly Open Access