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There have been attempts to verify Beall's list independently.<ref>Walt Crawford, (July 2014), "Journals, 'Journals' and Wannabes: Investigating The List", ''Cites & Insights'', 14:7, ISSN 1534-0937 [http://citesandinsights.info/civ14i7on.pdf]</ref>
There have been attempts to verify Beall's list independently.<ref>Walt Crawford, (July 2014), "Journals, 'Journals' and Wannabes: Investigating The List", ''Cites & Insights'', 14:7, ISSN 1534-0937 [http://citesandinsights.info/civ14i7on.pdf]</ref>
As a result of Beall's list and also the ''[[Who's Afraid of Peer Review?]]'' investigation, the [[Directory of Open Access Journals]] (DOAJ) has tightened up its inclusion criteria, with the purpose of serving as a [[whitelist]], very much like Beall's has been a [[blacklist]].<ref>{{cite doi|10.1038/512017a}}</ref> The investigation found that "the results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor
As a result of Beall's list and also the ''[[Who's Afraid of Peer Review?]]'' investigation, the [[Directory of Open Access Journals]] (DOAJ) has tightened up its inclusion criteria, with the purpose of serving as a [[whitelist]], very much like Beall's has been a [[blacklist]].<ref>{{cite doi|10.1038/512017a}}</ref> The investigation found that "the results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor
quality control."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bohannon|first1=J|title=Who's afraid of peer review?|journal=Science (New York, N.Y.)|date=4 October 2013|volume=342|issue=6154|pages=60-5|pmid=24092725}}</ref>
quality control."


Beall has been threatened with a [[Jeffrey Beall#Legal threat|lawsuit]] by a Canadian publisher that appears on the list and he reports that he has been the subject of online harassment for his work on the subject.
Beall has been threatened with a [[Jeffrey Beall#Legal threat|lawsuit]] by a Canadian publisher that appears on the list and he reports that he has been the subject of online harassment for his work on the subject.

Revision as of 05:16, 29 November 2014

In academic publishing, predatory open access publishing describes an exploitative open-access publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not). "Beall's List", a regularly-updated report by Jeffrey Beall, sets forth criteria for categorizing predatory publications and lists publishers and independent journals that meet those criteria.[1]

History and Beall's List

The term "predatory open access" was conceived by University of Colorado Denver librarian and researcher Jeffrey Beall. After noticing a large number of emails inviting him to submit articles or join the editorial board of previously unknown journals, he began researching open-access publishers and created Beall's List of potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers.[2] Beall has also written on this topic in The Charleston Advisor,[1] in Nature,[3] and in Learned Publishing.[4]

Preceding Beall's efforts was the well-known case of a manuscript consisting of computer-generated nonsense submitted by a Cornell graduate student, Phil Davis, which was accepted (but withdrawn by the author) for a fee by one of the open-access publishers now included on Beall's List.[5]

Beall published his first list of predatory publishers in 2010.[2] In August 2012 he posted his criteria for evaluating publishers,[2] with the second edition posted on December 1 the same year.[6] In February 2013 he added a process for a publisher to appeal its inclusion in the list.[2]

Characteristics of predatory publishing

Complaints that are associated with predatory open-access publishing include

  • Accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review or quality control,[7] including hoax and nonsensical papers.[5][8]
  • Notifying academics of article fees only after papers are accepted.[7]
  • Aggressively campaigning for academics to submit articles or serve on editorial boards.[2]
  • Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission,[1][9] and not allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.[1][10]
  • Appointing fake academics to editorial boards.[11]
  • Mimicking the name or web site style of more established journals (see hijacked journal).[10]
  • Misleading claims about the publishing operation, such as a false location.[1]
  • Improper use of ISSNs.[1]
  • Fake impact factors[12][13]

Reception

In 2013, Nature reported that Beall's list and web site are "widely read by librarians, researchers and open-access advocates, many of whom applaud his efforts to reveal shady publishing practices."[2] Others have raised doubts that "Whether it's fair to classify all these journals and publishers as 'predatory' is an open question — several shades of gray may be distinguishable."[14] There have been attempts to verify Beall's list independently.[15] As a result of Beall's list and also the Who's Afraid of Peer Review? investigation, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has tightened up its inclusion criteria, with the purpose of serving as a whitelist, very much like Beall's has been a blacklist.[16] The investigation found that "the results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor quality control."[17]

Beall has been threatened with a lawsuit by a Canadian publisher that appears on the list and he reports that he has been the subject of online harassment for his work on the subject.

His list has been criticized[citation needed] by some organizations which represent open-access publishers for relying heavily for analysis of publishers' web sites, not engaging directly with publishers, and including newly founded but legitimate journals. Beall has responded to these complaints by posting the criteria he uses to generate the list, as well as instituting an anonymous three-person review body to which publishers can appeal to be removed from the list.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Elliott, Carl (June 5, 2012). "On Predatory Publishers: a Q&A With Jeffrey Beall". Brainstorm. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Butler, Declan (March 27, 2013). "Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing". Nature. 495 (7442): 433–435. doi:10.1038/495433a. PMID 23538810.
  3. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1038/489179a, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1038/489179a instead.
  4. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1087/20130203, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1087/20130203 instead.
  5. ^ a b Basken, Paul (June 10, 2009). "Open-Access Publisher Appears to Have Accepted Fake Paper From Bogus Center". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  6. ^ Beall, Jeffrey (December 1, 2012). "Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers (2nd edition)". Scholarly Open Access.
  7. ^ a b Stratford, Michael (March 4, 2012). "'Predatory' Online Journals Lure Scholars Who Are Eager to Publish". The Chronicle of Higher Education. (subscription required)
  8. ^ Gilbert, Natasha (June 15, 2009). "Editor will quit over hoax paper". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2009.571.
  9. ^ Beall, Jeffrey (August 1, 2012). "Predatory Publishing". The Scientist.
  10. ^ a b Kolata, Gina (April 7, 2013). "For Scientists, an Exploding World of Pseudo-Academia". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Neumann, Ralf (February 2, 2012). ""Junk Journals" und die "Peter-Panne"". Laborjournal.
  12. ^ Jeffrey Beall. "Bogus New Impact Factor Appears". Scholarly Open Access.
  13. ^ Mehrdad Jalalian, Hamidreza Mahboobi (2013). "New corruption detected: Bogus impact factors compiled by fake organizations" (PDF). Electronic Physician. 5 (3): 685–686.
  14. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1056/NEJMp1214750, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1056/NEJMp1214750 instead.
  15. ^ Walt Crawford, (July 2014), "Journals, 'Journals' and Wannabes: Investigating The List", Cites & Insights, 14:7, ISSN 1534-0937 [1]
  16. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1038/512017a, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1038/512017a instead.
  17. ^ Bohannon, J (4 October 2013). "Who's afraid of peer review?". Science (New York, N.Y.). 342 (6154): 60–5. PMID 24092725.

External links

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