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Today’s post consists of two emails. One is from OMICS Publishing Group to a scientist who attended an OMICS conference, and the second is the scientist’s reply to OMICS.

Email from OMICS Publishing Group

Dear Dr. Jim,

Greetings for the day!! We are really thankful to you for your consistent support towards the conference Genetic Engineering 2013 and for efficiently managing the conference.

We would like to know your experience during the conference days. Also I would like to have your feedback for Genetic Engineering 2013 and Suggestions for the upcoming Genetic Engineering 2014.

Your Suggestion and feedback value a lot for us for further proceedings. Thank for your cooperation. Awaiting for your early response

Regards

Lincy Mathew
Genetic Engineering 2013

Email to OMICS Publishing Group

Hello! I am happy to provide you my honest feedback about Genetic Engineering 2013. I hope you take my comments/suggestions to heart. If not, I will certainly never attend another OMICS meeting. Frankly, it was by far the worst, most unorganized meeting I have ever attended in my nearly 30 years as a scientist. It was a total sham of a meeting. In no particular order, here are my complaints:

1) The meeting was shortened to 2 days from 3 with no notice. We were not notified of this change in any way other than when the final program was available online, it covered only 2 days instead of 3. People came from all over the world for this meeting. They need time to make flight changes etc. Personally I drove so it wasn’t a problem, however, I did end up paying for an extra night for a room that I did not need. In these tight budget times, as a Government scientist we can only attend at most one meeting per year. To waste money on a room we did not need is inexcusable. We should be all notified in advance before the length of a meeting is changed.

2) I was asked to be on the “Organizing Committee” and was never asked my opinion on anything. The meeting was “organized” without any input from any organizing member, at least anyone that I talked to. Only 2 out of 19 listed organizing members were actually at the meeting. I even emailed one member that was not at the meeting and she told me that she never had any input on the meeting either. Why have an organizing committee if they cannot do anything? It appears you wanted us on a “committee” to look good, to make the meeting look legit.

3) The meeting is billed as a major event but it is far from it. At the “height” of the meeting, 19 people were in the room. By the second day, there were perhaps half as many. If all the supposed organizing committee members were present, we would have had twice as many attendees!

4) On the first day we had 13 scheduled talks. Of these, we ended up having only 8. The other speakers never arrived. Having nearly 40% of the speakers never arrive indicates a HUGE organizational problem. Do attendees think this is the fault of the organizing committee that never had a say in these maters? Is that why there is an organizing committee, to take the blame? I certainly fielded plenty of complaints while at the meeting. I finally found myself saying, I am not associated with OMICS. I have never seen a meeting where more than a few percent of the scheduled talks were missing. The other keynote speaker and I each gave 2 talks, so between us we gave a full 50% of the talks on the first day!

The second day was worse. Of the 10 scheduled talks, only 3 were given. A whopping 70% of no shows! Thus, the meeting actually ended at lunchtime on the second day. So a meeting that was supposed to run 3 days, was actually at most 1.5 days and that is being generous. Did we get 50% of our registration fee back? In a word, no.

5) There was no acknowledgement/apology from the OMICS organization about the poor turnout for the meeting even though the founder was there.

6) There was no real guidance from the OMICS organizers on how to run the meeting. I was tapped to moderate the meeting, which I did. However, that quickly turned into running it from start to finish with no guidance. It was only after many emails and in person questions that I figured out what was wanted. How the actual meeting proceeded seemed to be of little importance to OMICS. I feel very used.

7) What seemed more important to OMICS was presenting awards. When I arrived I had to sign a huge stack of awards. Anything from being a chairperson, to presenting a talk, to attending the meeting was grounds for an award. This seems very much like being in elementary school. A large amount of time was taken up on the first day by handing each other awards and having our pictures taken doing so. Why? I strongly suspect these photos will be used for promotion of further OMICS meetings. See all the smiling scientists! I did not attend this meeting to promote OMICS, but I strongly suspect that is what I will be doing. Why else have me sign these “awards”? OMICS wanted to have my name and affiliation associated with everything that happened at the meeting.

8) OMICS is not fully honest. Not only was this meeting much smaller than billed, shortened without notice etc, it is being advertised as a bigger success than it was. There is a report page that can be found here: http://www.omicsgroup.com/conferences/past-conference-reports/genetic-engineering-2013-past/

On this page, it shows twelve different scientists that gave “expert presentations” at “Genetic Engineering 2013”. The problem is, 3 of those scientists were not even there! This will be discussed further below but I request my picture and name be removed from that page. I do not endorse Genetic Engineering 2014 in any way. I do not want people to think that I do.

9) As one of my duties, I was asked to judge the poster presentations which I was happy to do. Near the end of lunch on the second day, Dr. Oshimura, the chair for the day stood up and announced that he had just been told that the rest of the meeting had been cancelled. Everyone still in attendance was shocked. This cancellation was because none of the afternoon speakers were present. Furthermore, he announced that the poster presentation would start immediately. There were a couple problems with this, neither of which were his fault. I know of at least two attendees that had already left the lunch room and thus did not get his announcement. They came back at the assigned poster time, 4:10, to put up their posters and found out then that the meeting was over. Thus, their posters were never judged through no fault of their own. They came all the way from Mexico to present their posters which were never viewed by anyone but a few of us that felt badly for them. When the announcement was made at lunch, I went and asked the OMICS representative, Monalisa, what I needed to do as far as judging the posters; did she have a form for it or what the procedure was. She informed me that Dr. Srinubabu Gedela already judged them! I don’t know when this happened (must have happened before lunch as we and they were in the same room and I didn’t see him.) but he 1) for certain did not see all of the posters as at least two were not up yet and 2) likely is not qualified to judge posters on genetic engineering. Again, science comes second in these “meetings”. The attendees that traveled great distances at significant cost deserve better.

I could go on and on but this is probably more time than I should waste on this already. In summary, this meeting was far too expensive for far too little meeting. It was “organized” (and I use that term loosely) with no help by an organizing committee, yet we take the blame. Many appearances are made to make it look like a fantastic meeting, but it is not. I do not wish to be a part of this meeting in the foreseeable future. Thus, please remove my picture(s) and name from this website: http://www.omicsgroup.com/conferences/past-conference-reports/genetic-engineering-2013-past/ I do not want anyone to be confused into thinking that I endorse your product. I also do not want my name and/or picture to appear on any other promotional material for any upcoming OMICS meeting. I respectfully ask that you follow my wishes. I wish to cut all ties with OMICS group.

Also, I am currently writing my resignation letter to resign from the editorial board of OMICS’ Advancements in Genetic Engineering for all of these and other reasons.

Sincerely,

James Sawitzke Ph.D.
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
Frederick, MD 21702

Note: Dr. Sawitzke has sent several additional emails to OMICS repeating his requests but they have not responded, and his requested action has not been taken.

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Jim Sawitzke says:

September 12, 2013 at 10:59 AM

I have now successfully removed myself from the editorial board via a phone call, emails were ignored. I have been unsuccessful reaching anyone on the phone about the Genetic Engineering meeting.

Sept. 12, 2013

Jim Sawitzke Ph.D.

Solomon Steiner says:

November 26, 2015 at 9:52 PM

Just for everyone’s info – this massive company is run out of India, they will address you with fake names like “rebecca parker” but do not be fooled.

Scott C says:

April 11, 2016 at 7:38 AM

Indeed, I’ve had emails from Derrick Matthews, when the quality and structure of the English clearly indicates something is awry. Emails from OMICS have been added to my junk mail filter.

David Gurarie says:

September 12, 2013 at 11:04 AM

What a sham!
Lately, I send all such solicitations to spam w/o opening.

Bruce W says:

September 12, 2013 at 11:54 AM

This Omics Publishing Group recently sent an e-mail to a the lady, who is mentioned on our website as our department’s secretary, asking her to be part of the Organizing Committee for the 2014 Neurology Meeting. The exact wording:

“Basing on your expertise we would like to honor you by giving the position as an Organizing Committee Member for Neuro -2014. Also we would like to give you an opportunity of plenary speaker at this conference. As an Organizing Committee Member the privileges would include an honorable position as the chair/co-chair for the session of your interest. ”

Already a long time ago we renamed them as the Comics Publishing Group.

m3gan0 says:

September 19, 2013 at 8:33 AM

that dishonors the honorable comics publishing industry.

Nils says:

September 12, 2013 at 11:55 AM

I really don’t see the need for all these new conference-organizing services. Small conferences (up to 100 attendees, say) are best organized at your own university/research institution, or at a venue in your geographical area. Then there are plenty of well-established conference centers, e.g. Banff. And finally there are the big recurrent meetings organized by scientific societies.

I believe all other organisations are just after your grant money.

Hope Leman (@hleman) says:

September 12, 2013 at 1:49 PM

We all owe a great deal to Jeffrey Beall and Dr. Sawitzke for this expose. It was fascinating reading–and very shocking to see scientists being treated so shabbily. Thank you both for such a detailed, absorbing, damning report.

Ron Davis says:

September 13, 2013 at 4:52 AM

Mr. Beall, I am happy to see a new watchdog like, Thomson Reuters, Scopus’s SCImago, during my online search for reliable sources. I am happy that this market is growing. They are offering SNIP indicator. Please visit http://www.journalindicators.com/

Farid says:

September 13, 2013 at 12:20 PM

Ron

Scopus’s SCImago is far better than Thomson Reuters since it is available for all users to verify the quality of a journal. These days, many Predatory journals establish a link with ISI and claim they are ISI index and many authors may accept their claims. Scopus’s SCImago cannot be manupulated and it is better than ISI.

Sylvain Bernès says:

September 13, 2013 at 8:30 AM

OMICs did a single mistake: to ask to Dr Sawitzke for feedback about the meeting.

R3sanon says:

September 17, 2013 at 11:08 AM

TL/DR – Gullible career lab tech’ in protected government job is angry because he got taken for the fool he probably is.

What the hell is an NCI scientist doing, wasting their only meeting per year on what is widely known to be a scam? Was this guy living under a rock? Did he not do any homework about this organization? For most scientists out in the “real world”, we go to meetings run by established societies in our area of expertise. Those, and a couple of other well known conference organizing bodies (Gordon, Keystone).

This type of negative publicity is useful, to highlight these shady business practices to the <1% of academia that isn't aware of them already. But C'mon! In my opinion he got exactly what he deserved for being so gosh-darned gullible in the first place. He got his ego massaged by the invitation, and thought "this looks sweet". It's like that time the Department Chair got a computer virus, or gave the Dept. bank account details to a guy from Nigeria who seemed legit. Maybe that's why this guy is a "senior research associate" and has a grand total of 20 publications after 30 years in the biz. He'll probably also find there's all sorts of small print in the attendance contract, in which attendees agree to have their name and likeness associated with the meeting, so he's up the creek without a paddle on that front too. Wonder if this guy has an AOL email account too? Mike says: September 18, 2013 at 6:34 AM Oh mighty R3sanon, with the >20 publications (greater than Dr. Sawitzke, for sure!), we should all bow down to your dizzying intellect and sharp detection of fraud from ANY corner of the globe. Please bestow upon us more words of wisdom from your tower on high so that we “protected” minions at the NIH can learn from your astounding (probably NIH granted) research insights! LOL

Diana says:

October 18, 2013 at 1:27 PM

And despite Mr. Sawitzke’s request his name is mentioned several times here still: “Special heartiest thanks to the moderator of Genetic Engineering 2013, Dr. Jim Sawitzke, NIH, USA for his contribution and consistent support for making this conference a success”.

Entertaining side note I have seen at least one listed publisher link to your site as a place they are indexed. Now that is funny.

Copernicus Publications is an open-access publisher based in Göttingen, Germany. It is not on my list of predatory publishers. However, I do have some serious concerns with Copernicus Publications.

Specifically, there are some problems with Copernicus Publications’ journal Pattern Recognition in Physics. The problems are these:

The journal’s editor-in-chief, Sid-Ali Ouadfeul, who works for the Algerian Petroleum Institute, started publishing his research in journal articles around 2010, but he’s only been cited a couple times, not counting his many self-citations.

Co-editor-in-chief Nils-Axel Morner is a noted climate “skeptic” who believes in dowsing (water divining) and believes he has found the “Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks” in Sweden, among other things. These beliefs are documented in Wikipedia and The Guardian. Morner has over 125 publications, but pattern recognition does not appear to be among his specialties.

Moreover, speaking of “pattern recognition,” my analysis revealed some self-plagiarism by editor Ouadfeul in the very first paper the journal published, an article he himself co-authored.

The following passage appears on page 6 of S.-A. Ouadfeul and L. Aliouane’s 2013 article, “Pattern recognition of structural boundaries from aeromagnetic data using the 2-D continuous wavelet transform and the 3-D analytic signal.”

The highlighted text first appeared in the following chapter of an online book entitled Wavelet Transforms and Their Recent Applications in Biology and Geoscience, edited by Dumitru Baleanu, ISBN 978-953-51-0212-0, and published on March 2, 2012.

(from p. 259). The authors of the 2013 piece do not attribute the verbatim passage to the authors of the 2012 work, nor do they even cite the pirated text in their bibliography. Also, the article contains additional instances of self-plagiarism. Is this the kind of “pattern recognition” the journal is talking about?

In summary, the journal so far contains only five articles: two articles by a co-editor (Ouadfeul), two by climate skeptics whose views align with the other editor (Monrer), and one article bearing a significant amount of self-plagiarism. This is not a good start for a journal, and the publisher ought to be concerned and take action.

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Comments:

Philip Odfer says:

July 16, 2013 at 11:10 AM

Its not good bad from the publisher. But it is also a reality that first few issues of almost every publisher are not good. That’s why ISI, Scopus and PubMed always ignore 2 or 3 issues and index afterward issues, as initially, its difficult for publisher to shepherd good articles. I could not consider it a very bad thing its human.

Samir Hachani says:

July 16, 2013 at 11:16 AM

I think that Ouadfel is surfing on the Copernicus name .Copernicus is the Publisher of the highly respected Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (ACPD) on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. I do know something about the site I have done part of my thsesis on the open peer review Ulrich Poeschl has pionneered. Ouadfel you ain’t no Poeschl !!!!!( though I’m Algerian too but knowledge does not a accept this kind of shenanigans

dikstr says:

January 17, 2014 at 10:47 AM

Copernicus’ action is a sad commentary on the lengths to which so-called scientific media will go to shield the deeply flawed CAGW hypotheses of the IPCC from reality and reason.

Mal Adapted says:

January 18, 2014 at 4:23 PM

You’re apparently under the misapprehension that hypotheses of CAGW originate with the IPCC. I think you’ll find…

Andrea says:

July 16, 2013 at 2:08 PM

What is interesting to me is why you do not include this one in your list. Have you made any changes in your policy? You used to be much harder on OA startups!

Genaro japos says:

July 16, 2013 at 5:36 PM

Thank you dr beall for the pattern recognition writeup that tracked a plagiarized part of an earlier published manuscript. Your advocacy
Has helped the far reaches of the planet, such as the philippines in particular. We are enlisting the help of turnitin, ithenticate and grammarly for this purpose. We are moving towards academic integrity as a proactive means to combat plagiarism. We are mobilizing our members to get membership in the international center for academic integrity in clemson university. In the darkness, we are seeing more candles being lighted from the single candle you started.

Claudia Holland says:

July 19, 2013 at 12:10 PM

My concern about Copernicus has to do with when an APC payment is due for one of their journals. The Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) journal requires payment of an APC for an author’s paper to be posted for discussion in NHESSD (from $15.75 to as much as $51.00/page). This payment is due upon acceptance of the article for posting in NHESSD.

Using the journal’s example (see http://www.natural-hazards-and-earth-system-sciences.net/submission/service_charges.html) a “typical” article would result in an APC of approximately $519.00. But this statement, “The discussion paper style leads to three times more pages than the classic manuscript style,” suggests the fee will be higher than that of a paper submitted for traditional peer review.

The tasks underwritten by the APC are clearly described on the journal’s website. Most of these tasks are not associated with publication of a peer-reviewed article; it is actually a fee charged for posting a working paper that may not be published in a formal publication.

Consequently, whether the Exec Editors intend this or not, the timing of payment intimates that Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) is a vanity publication because the fee is due BEFORE the paper is actually published. The “acceptance” letter an author receives is only for the initial vetting process by the editor and the availability of the paper for discussion.

I am not criticizing the review process for this journal, but I am highly skeptical of the reasons for charging the fee before a paper has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication. As a manager of an open access publishing fund at my institution, I cannot currently recommend payment of this journal’s APC.

A Scientists says:

July 20, 2013 at 2:06 PM

I think Ouadfeul and Morner are big personlaities and they don’t merit what you have written. You are very hard and I think that you have some problems with these big personalities. Do you call this passage a plagiarism !!!
I have read all the five papers of PRP and authors are big scientists ! and you ……….

Scientist says:

July 20, 2013 at 5:25 PM

I’m not agree with you man! this is the geological setting of the area established by geologists in both of papers the source is cited.
Please try to be intelligent before write some thing about other scientific personalities. The paper is co-authored by two editors and handled by Dr Morner (reputable scientific personality).
I think that your objective is not clear………..

Scientist says:

July 20, 2013 at 5:29 PM

Samir Hachani
I think you should be a publisher of at the least one paper before talking about scientists like that!
Please try to spend your time preparing your Phd rather than talking about personalities that have spent their time working hardly to serve science with 00.00 euro
Regards
Scientist

Samir Hachani says:

July 21, 2013 at 2:27 PM

I , Samir Hachani , sign with my real name. Mister ” scientist ” who are you ? wouldn’t you be either a person who’s acquainted with the “personnalities” or the personnalities themselves !!!!! I’m not trying to start a polemic but reacting to what Dr. Beall has noticed. If the “personnalities could prove they have been wronged , they can sue !!!! As far as I know, they are silent ” and ” silence implies consent “.Saha Ftourek “scientist “

Pattern Recognition says:

July 21, 2013 at 6:15 AM

I have read carefully the paper, I think this not a plagiarism, this the geological setting of the area.
The reference (Dejami, 2009)is cited in both papers

Ahmed says:

July 21, 2013 at 7:47 AM

this your opinion, you are not a god and a big scientists to juge journals and personalities. Please accept my apologies but………
Copernicus is a big publisher and work with big personalities
Open Access is a new publication procedure; please see
http://www.intechopen.com/about-open-access.html

A.Philip says:

July 21, 2013 at 8:29 AM

Colleagues
It is not good from educated people to say harsh words about big scientists Like Morner and Ouadfeul

Michael says:

August 4, 2013 at 5:24 AM

Benestad has written a comment (in PRP) on the earlier Scafetta PRP article (S13). Benestad is scathing of S13 and some quotes are:

“This conclusion is in error because it is based on a misrepresentation of the previous work.”

“S13 further made reference to “outdated hockey-stick paleoclimatic temperature graphs” with no factual support”.

“S13 misrepresented BS09 by giving the impression that a multiple regression with 10 covariates was used to estimate the solar contribution to the recent warming.”

What an odd name for a scholarly publisher: iProbe. It sounds like the name of an Apple app for endoscopic surgeons. Here is my probe of iProbe.

The name is not the only strange thing about this new publisher. Most of its website appears to have been translated into English using Google Translate. Much of it makes no sense and is extremely smarmy. Take this text from one of its calls for papers, for example:

Please respond to this mail as soon as possible if you are paying attention. We would look forward for your valuable reply. It is always a great pleasure & treasure to hear back from you doctor! For promoting the scientific community, it’s really very interesting to work with you I must say. If you contributed for this journal would be treasured.

With warm regards,
Editorial Office
Open Access Journals
iProbe Group

The publisher has 48 brand-new journals in its portfolio. Most are medical science journals, but there is also a math journal, an engineering journal, and one zoology journal. None has any content yet, and the editorial boards are currently being formed and the journals are all open for submission. The article processing charge for a research article is $799.

The site lists this address:

14175 Sullyfield Circle
Suite # 402, Chantilly
VA 20151, USA

A Google search of that address brings up a company called USM Business Systems, which has a branch office in Hyderabad, India. Is this publisher really an Indian operation?

Each individual journal links to the page above. The page makes no sense to me. It says, “Partially published articles will be deposited in PubMed” Huh? Why not publish the entire article?

It also says all articles will be deposited in — among other services — Google Scholar. How do you deposit an article in Google Scholar?

I think the publisher’s use of the logos here is unwarranted and an attempt to make itself look legitimate. I am increasingly seeing new fleet startups like this one. Does the world really need these 48 new open-access journals?

Hat tip: Dr. Thomas Long

Appendix: List of iProbe journals as of June 10, 2013:
o Addiction Therapy & Clinical Research
o AIDS & Clinical Research Journal
o Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology Journal
o Ecology & Ecotoxicology
o Emergency Medicine & Health Education
o Engineering Journal: Aeronautical & Aerospace
o Inorganic Chemistry Journal
o International Journal of Biomedical Engineering
o International Journal of Clinical Anesthesia
o iProbe: Clinical Case Reports
o iProbe: Journal of Biotechnology
o iProbe: Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering
o iProbe: Journal of Computer Science & Engineering
o iProbe: Journal of Computing Programs & Systems
o iProbe: Journal of Mathematical Analysis & Applications
o iProbe: Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
o iProbe: Journal of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
o iProbe: Physical Chemistry Journal
o Journal of Biological Informatics & Biodiversity
o Journal of Biological Research & Development
o Journal of Cancer Therapy & Research
o Journal of Cardiology Research & Therapy
o Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Biochemical Technology
o Journal of Clinical Pharmacology & Clinical Pharmacokinetics
o Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
o Journal of Computer Software & Hardware
o Journal of Dental Research & Therapeutic Science
o Journal of Dermatological Science & Therapy
o Journal of Environmental Sciences & Research
o Journal of Forensic Science & Technology
o Journal of Gynecological Research & Therapy
o Journal of Health Community
o Journal of Life & Agriculture Sciences
o Journal of Mechanical & Biomechanical Engineering
o Journal of Nanotechnology & Nanomedicine
o Journal of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
o Journal of Nutritional Science & Therapy
o Journal of Palynology & Phycology
o Journal of Pharmaceutical Science & Development
o Journal of Primary Care & Family Medicine
o Journal of Surgical Research & Technology
o Journal of Traditional Medicine
o Journal of Vaccination & Vaccines
o Journal of Zoological Research & Development
o Macromolecular Science: Research Reports
o Natural & Synthetical Products in Organic Chemistry
o Otolaryngology Clinical Research
o Social Sciences: Current Research

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Comments:

Genaro japos says:

June 13, 2013 at 12:28 PM

Is there a way interpol can apprehend predatory publishers? How can such acts constitute international crimes against science and humanity? Can we make a position paper to unesco and compel members of united nations to be signatories?

Jeffrey Beall says:

June 13, 2013 at 5:06 PM

Most of them are not doing anything illegal. They all enjoy freedom of the press. I don’t consider them illegal, just unethical.

adakole abu says:

June 13, 2013 at 4:24 PM

Please I would be pleased to have your comments on journals such as: Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, African Journal of Biotechnology, Journal of Medicinal Plants Research, Asian Pacific Journal of Reproduction, Livestock Research for Rural Development, International Journal of Poultry Science, Macedonia Journal of Medical Sciences, Iranian Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Kind regards,

Adakole Abu

by Robert Calin-Jageman and Jeffrey Beall

Society benefits from the results of scientific research in many ways. Scholarly research supports expert testimony in courts of law, medical research is translated into improvements in clinical care, and the media report on new and interesting research and how it may impact our lives.

So, what’s at stake when a media outlet cites information from a journal published by a predatory publisher?

This was the case recently when the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a glowing summary of a research paper published in Psychology Research, a scholarly journal published by the questionable publisher David Publishing.

David Publishing is a Chinese outfit that purports to operate out of Southern California. Its poorly-run website is extremely slow and difficult to navigate. Also, its journals lack credible editorial boards and publish articles of dubious quality — it’s a vanity press. As of this writing, there is no editorial board listed for the journal.

One of the ironies of predatory journals is that they sometimes contain articles that seem sound. This occurs because some serious researchers are fooled into thinking the publisher is a high-quality one, or they don’t evaluate its quality sufficiently.

So, should journalists cite material from predatory journals? Should they pick out the potentially good from a sea of obvious bad? Or should journalists refrain entirely from reporting on research from predatory journals?

Complete embargo seems to be a wise choice for several reasons. First, it doesn’t seem that predatory journals conduct meaningful peer review for any of their articles. Thus, all their articles could include errors of analysis or interpretation that would have been corrected by expert reviewers. Is that really such a big deal? Probably. After all, even high quality open-access journals like PLos ONE reject about 30% of submissions. For the 70% that make it through it’s usually with substantial improvement through feedback and revision. Thus, even though some articles in a predatory journal can seem sound, it is probably best to consider their real quality an unknown. Given this, journalists would probably be better off avoiding predatory journals in favor of the abundance of true peer-reviewed research reported each week.

Another reason for the popular press to completely avoid predatory journals is to keep from adding fuel to the fire.

Secondary coverage can only add to the veneer of credibility that predatory journals seek to manufacture, enabling them to dupe even more hapless victims.

It’s surprising to see a respected source like the Chronicle being sloppy enough with sourcing to report on an article from a predatory journal. It’s a stroke of good luck for the journal, but their gain may be the Chronicle’s loss.

There is also the increasing problem of articles in high-quality journals citing research published in predatory journals, and we hope to study this more in the coming year.

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Comments:

Shawn says:

January 8, 2013 at 1:04 PM

Any type of embargo is not practical. First, there is no standard that you can enact to determine which publication is vanity press. You can define vanity press as “Pay to publish,” but it is very difficult to prove the lack of peer review and/or editorial boards. Second, while there are clear cut examples, the trend is definitely heading toward heavily disguised operations. Even seasoned serials professionals have a hard time figuring these publishers/publications out sometimes. Finally, a real journalist that did his/her homework would have also cited the fact that the publisher is based in China and have been labelled as a vanity press.

I think that’s the proper way to handle these types of situation.

Bob Calin-Jageman says:

January 22, 2013 at 9:02 AM

You guys are giving journalists way too much credit. It’s not that they are being fooled by predatory publishers. It’s that they don’t care if the sources is disreputable.

When I contacted the journalist who wrote up the CHE story, he was fully aware the source was predatory. But, he replied, in this case the primary authors had told him there was peer review, so he felt it was fine.

I contacted one of the senior editors at CHE to ask about this. He concurred. He felt that the poor quality of the journal doesn’t reflect on the specific article at all, that this would be spreading guilt by association. He argued that there policy is simply to quote and cite the sources, which they had did in this case. The fact that the journal had no editorial board to conduct the claimed peer review did not impress him. The fact that the authors of the primary paper would no longer respond to emails about it didn’t worry him.

So – journalists aren’t getting tripped up. They just simply don’t have a stake in this fight–a source is a source is a source for them. I think that’s what should change–fooled is fine, but they really shouldn’t knowingly use a predatory journal article as a source.

Bob Calin-Jageman says:

January 22, 2013 at 9:05 AM

p.s. here is a bit of my correspondence with CHE:

I asked them:
Does the CHE article meet your standards for journalism? Does it violate principles of journalistic norms, such as “don’t cite dubious sources” or “check your sources”? It is *this* issue which I believe deserves comment and response.

I would argue, as I did in the letter, that a journal with no academic process transmits its dubious status to all its articles. Therefore, it is not good journalistic practice to rely on articles from such sources. If CHE agrees, I would urge you to flag, amend, or retract the article for falling below CHE’s standards for quality. If CHE disagrees, I’d like to know why (e.g. perhaps CHE journalists are sufficiently astute to judge the scientific quality of an article regardless of its context).

And CHE editor Lawrence Biemiller replied:

I’m not the final arbiter of our journalistic standards, but my gut feeling—as a 32-year employee of the paper—is that yes, this article meets our standards. It reports accurately on credible research of interest to our readers. The fact that this research was published in a journal of questionable integrity may mean it’s time for a follow-up article on predatory journals, but I don’t myself accept your blanket guilt-by-assocation approach. As our earlier article on such journals noted, legitimate, well-intentioned scholars are being taken in by these journals, but I don’t think that means we have to ignore all their research. I know Dan and his editor, Sara Hebel, have talked over your points and don’t see that this article requires the retraction you sought.

As for not quoting dubious sources, any journalist tries to do that, but it’s a slippery slope. I myself have been having trouble believing anything that has come out of the mouth of the Speaker of the House of Representatives about the fiscal cliff, but I have a number of friends who are equally suspicious—far more suspicious, actually—of anything they believe the president has said about guns. So where does that leave us?

—Lawrence Biemiller

Ogwo says:

January 9, 2013 at 2:25 PM

I agree entirely with Shawn.

Robin Hood says:

January 12, 2013 at 1:00 PM

Exactly Shawn. That is why the scientific community is now in serious trouble, I believe. Journalism and scientific journalism is, in my opinion, already so biased and opinionated, that it actually doesn’t matter to the academic community. If we look at main-stream US “journalism”, it is evident that each one is pushing for a socio-political agenda. So, scientists should always be suspicious of journalism overall, because most journalists are not scientists and thus have no understanding, in fact, of how it works. The underlying risks that Jeff is referring to are, however, more important for scientists. And allow me to explain using an example. Imagine a scientist does a search on Google or Yahoo for a toic, e.g. salmon eggs. Maybe some OA PDFs appear in the first 2-3 pages of Yahoo or Google, and, because the scientist is too lazy, or too irresponsible to conduct a thorough search on “respected” data-bases, or maybe because the scientist is unaware of the predatory nature of many OA operations, that predatory paper on salmon eggs slips into the reference list of a paper that might be eventually published by a non-predatory publisher. Suddenly, you have a situation where valid publishers, at least those that abide by fairly well established industry codes, are actually supporting predatory OA publishers by “validating” them in reference lists. Thisis the immediate imapct. The mid-term impact which is now becoming evident over 2006-2013, is that papers from predatory publishers can, in the case of one publisher, now start to account for as much as 15% of all references in reference lists (suing Jeff’s lists as the industry standard). Most of these predators have a long-term vision, and if you and others haven’t figured this out yet, then you will never figure it out. Predators are seeking, as a long-term goal, to be massively referenced in as many journals as possible. Then, along comes Thomson Reuters’ spiders and automatic bots, which are simply robots that scour the internet and data-bases in search of key-words, and develop an Impact Factor based on number of times a journal is referenced. Before you know it, clearly predatory publishers, with unqualified editor boards, fraudulent actions, rubbish and non-sensical papers and no scientific quality, quality control or transparency, suddenly appear with an Impact Factor. This is, in the fraudster’s eyes, the ultimate validation. And we, the scientific community, give it to them on a platter. Thus, the first thing that needs to take place is EXACTLY an embargo on clear predators, and their papers should be BANNED from being included in reference lists of valid journals. Of course, many “valid” publishers and journals are themselves predators, in different ways, so soon it will be difficult to differentiate valid from invalid predators, and OA from print predators. Science is in crisis, no doubt. But radical measures like banning and embargos might be the only way to force the hands of fraudsters who only have one objective in mind: profit (by hook or by crook).