Be careful with this.

A company that sells research promotion services is using email addresses left on PLOS Medicine’s comments section to spam researchers. Research Media is a U.K.-based company that spams scholarly authors and tries to get them to pay for self-promotional articles in its magazine, International Innovation. Several researchers have forwarded me copies of Research Media’s spam email lately, an indication that it has ramped up its spamming.

One researcher left a comment on a PLOS Medicine article entitled Deception in Research on the Placebo Effect. The comment bears the headline “Placebo: physician, heal thyself.” After leaving this comment, he got a spam email from Research Media referring to the comment.

The spam emails are cleverly written, and they strike a friendly tone. The spams do not mention the fees (as much as $3,000) that the company charges researchers to showcase their research in the magazine. A typical Research Media spam email begins like this:

I was hoping to talk with you at some point next week. I came across your published paper – Placebo: Physician, Heal Thyself and I wanted to speak with you about the possibility of highlighting the broader scope of you [sic] work in our health and biology research report, International Innovation, we are particularly interested in focusing around research in the field of genetics.

The spam email mischaracterizes the online comment as a “published paper.”  Research Media’s emails pander to researchers, exploiting the need for their research to draw attention and have impact.

It is unclear whether International Innovation has a significant number of readers. It is essentially a magazine full of advertisements for researchers with enough extra funding to pay for puffery. The more grant money spent on self-promotion means less that is devoted to actual research.

Conclusion It appears that Research Media is harvesting scientists’ email addresses from PLOS journals and then spamming the scientists with clever, pandering offers to promote their research.

I imagine the company is harvesting email addresses from other comments sections and peer review sections of scholarly communications websites as well.

So if you leave a comment on such a website that includes your email address, be prepared to receive an exploitative email from Research Media. Hat tip: Dr. Arunachalam Kumar

The suspect article.

The COSMO-RS method is an advanced method for the quantitative calculation of solvation mixture thermodynamics based on quantum chemistry. It was developed by Andreas Klamt and is distributed as the software COSMOtherm by his company COSMOlogic (as well as in the form of several remakes by others).

Some Nigerian researchers have used the software (without a license) and report a tremendously and completely unbelievably good correlation (r²=0.992) between the predicted results and experimental data for the logKow (octanol water partition coefficient) of ionic liquids.

A closer look to the data reveals that the experimental data in the plot have nothing to do with the data reported in the PhD thesis referenced as the experimental data source. Hence we need to conclude that the entire paper is complete fake.

The unrealistic results are published in the Journal of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, a journal published in Faisalabad, Pakistan by AcademicJournals, one of the very first publishers included on my list of predatory publishers back in 2010.

I received an email from Prof. Dr. Andreas Klamt in Leverkusen, Germany who explained the case to me. He’s the CEO of COSMOlogic. Dr. Klamt writes:

I had been told there about a case, where some Nigerian people reported unbelievably good results with my COSMO-RS method. They report an r² of 0.992, completely out of the realistic expectations. Checking in more detail I found that the experimental data have nothing to do with the experimental data reported in the PhD thesis which is given as source of the experimental data. Not even the number of experimental data is in agreement with the source, nor the sign of the logarithm. The data are complete fake.

A second published article written by the same authors and appearing in the same issue of the same journal is “Improvement of carbon dioxide absorption technology using conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS) method.“

A second article in the same issue.

For both articles, all the authors show their affiliation as the Department of Chemical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria.  The two articles have two authors in common: S.I. Mustapha and S.M. (Saidu Mohammad) Waziri. Mustapha’s name does not appear on the department’s faculty list.

It’s not uncommon to see more than one paper by the same author or authors in the same issue of a predatory journal. Predatory journals sometimes grant volume discounts to authors.

acetaldehyde

Dr. Klamt has tried in vain to contact the authors, the journal’s editors, and the publisher, with one exception. He reports that one editorial board member responded saying he has been trying to get his name removed from the journal’s website for a long time, but without success.

Predatory publishers accept papers regardless of their scientific rigor just to earn the article processing charges. Junk science like these articles is polluting and corrupting the scholarly record.

Unwelcome page charges.

The Journal of Reproductive Medicine is a subscription journal published by Science Printers and Publishers, Inc., based in St Louis, Missouri. The journal angered many of its authors recently.

Without warning, the journal imposed an $80 per-page charge, even though it is not an open-access journal. So it will receive income from both subscriptions and page charges. The new page charges also apply to papers currently in press.

Authors of papers in press received an unsigned memo informing them of the new charges and offering them two choices, pay a discounted charge of $50 per page, or withdraw the manuscript. Here is a screenshot of part of the memo:

Nightmare for authors.

I’ve heard that some of the authors caught in this trap feel like they are victims of extortion. As of this writing (October 26, 2013), the journal’s “Checklist for authors” page does not mention the fee.

We encourage The Journal of Reproductive Medicine to revisit the retroactive application of this fee.

Appendix: Full copy of the publisher’s letter

Hat tip and thanks: Dr. Michael Carson

Neither scientific nor international

Academicus (subtitle: International Scientific Journal) is a scholarly journal based in Albania. I recently added it to my list of questionable standalone journals, an action that has outraged the journal’s editor, Arta Musaraj.

She called me from Albania and told me my actions were criminal. She now has others calling me pressuring me to remove the journal from my list of questionable standalone journals.

Here are the reasons I added Academicus to my list:

1. The editor, Arta Musaraj, sent me this letter asking me to add the journal to my list. (That’s how I became aware of it). On the telephone, she denied sending me the letter.
2. There are prominent grammatical errors throughout the site.
3. The copyediting in the articles is extremely poor, including in this suspect article supposedly written by US Ambassador Thomas Patrick Melady, one of the journal’s listed editorial board members.
4. The “copy” function is turned off for all PDFs, making it difficult to check for plagiarism and preventing search engines from indexing the content, a disadvantage to authors, whose work is less discoverable.
5. The site provides no information about the article processing charges.
6. The site gives no information about its digital preservation practices.
7. Some of the published articles contain plagiarism.
8. The email I received from the editor contained false statements: “…  Academicus International Acientific [sic] Journal actually the most outstanding scientific journal in Balkan area and Mediterranian [sic] as well.”
9. On its Facebook page, the journal brags “Universal Impact Factor evaluates with 1.0257 the Impact Factor for year 2012 of Academicus International Scientific Journal.” I believe that the so-called Universal Impact Factor is a bogus metric that has no value.
10. The journal purports to be an international scientific journal, but a good proportion of the articles are about the political economy and social conditions of Albania

The following two screenshots document a case of duplicate publication in the journal. In issue number 7, Published in 2013 Academicus published the article “Attractiveness of foreign investments in Albania: A focused analysis of factors, constraints, and policy assessment” by Blerta Dragusha and Elez Osmani.

Two years earlier, in 2011, the same article was published under a different title, “Foreign Direct Investments in Albania,” by Blerta Dragusha and Aurora Pulti.  This earlier article was published in European Scientific Journal, vol. 24 (October, 2011). This is a very serious case of duplicate publication / self-plagiarism.

The recycled article

The article above was published in Academicus, nr. 7, 2013

http://www.academicus.edu.al/nr7/Academicus-MMXIII-7-072-083.pdf

The original article

The article above was published in European Scientific Journal, vol. 24 (October, 2011)

http://www.eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/32/32

Conclusion

Editor Arta Musaraj herself has five articles published in the journal. Most of them are jingoistic and rambling discussions of Albania’s social and economic policies. Two of these lack any references at all.

I stand by my assessment of Academicus. It is a very low quality and even predatory journal that is an insult to honest scholarship.

Borderline?

Frontiers is a Lausanne, Switzerland-based scholarly open-access publisher. Owned by Nature Publishing Group, the firm publishes 38 journals, chiefly in the life sciences.

Frontiers does not meet the criteria for inclusion as a predatory publisher, but I regularly receive complaints about its spamming and editorial practices.

I realize that there are probably many people that are satisfied with Frontiers, and that it is likely publishing good science. Still, there is value in sharing others’ experiences with this publisher.

Here are three emails. The first two are parts of emails sent to me; the last one was sent to a Frontiers staff person and later forwarded to me by the sender.

1.

Dear Jeffrey,

I have been asked to be a “review editor” for Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Physics, and open access journal which I see charges a high fee to publish papers.  It is part of the “Frontiers” group that is evidently associated with Nature.

It looks like they have “chief specialty editor”, and “associate editor,” and “review editors,” the latter being essentially glorified reviewers.  My guess is that the other two editors are going to be paid, so it looks a bit like a pyramid scheme, a lá Amway.  The review editors are supposed to help improve the papers, so it seems to be a fee-for-publishing (with help) kind of deal.  (I actually know the chief specialty and associate editor for this journal.)

What do you think about these “Frontiers in…” journals?  I didn’t see them on your list…

[Sender's name redacted]

2.

Hello:

I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I cannot find any information about this publisher (http://www.frontiersin.org/) other than what is on their website and a brief Wikipedia article. Apparently, Nature Publishing Group has a controlling stake in the company. Do you or does anyone have a list of good, respectable OA publishers? OA publishers with a working peer review process and quality assessment/control?

I was stung by one of the email spam campaigns soliciting invited reviews and finally came across your website. I saw that the email I’d received had be sent to 100′s or 1000′s of people. I’d actually started working on the review and so was pretty dispirited. After that experience, I’ve become quite hesitant about OA publishing, but I still conceptually like the OA idea.

[Sender's name redacted]

3.

Dear Dr Brandi,

Thank you so much for your detailed reply. Nevertheless, I confirm that I no longer want to be listed as a potential “associate editor”, nor as a referee. As I said, I receive daily requests for reviews from one of the Frontiers journal. Usually the topic is barely if at all related to my own work. I’ve taken the habit of systematically deleting these messages, so you might as well delete my name from your database.

I would like to mention that I do a lot of pro-bono refereeing and editing for Science, PNAS, etc, so this is certainly not laziness on my part. But I find the Frontiers process inacceptable. What kind of quality science do you expect when you give instructions such as “The submitted article type requires only a short review, which means that it is not obligatory to invite reviewers. It is sufficient that you read this manuscript and perform a light review on it yourself. If you have any comments to the authors, please post those directly in the review forum. Otherwise you may take an acceptance decision on this manuscript directly.”

Sorry for being blunt, but I think that this sort of process means that the Frontiers goal is primarily financial.

With apologies and best wishes,

[Sender's name redacted]

When a scholarly publisher doesn’t have to worry about losing subscriptions, the entire publishing dynamic changes. There’s less accountability. We hope that Frontiers can take these criticisms into account and make improvements in its operations.

Pay more for a shorter review time.

Hong Kong-based Baishideng Publishing Group is offering authors the opportunity to pay for expedited processing of their submitted manuscripts. It calls this service its “Premier Publication Service.”

One of the Baishideng journals that offers this service is the World Journal of Gastroenterology. The normal article processing charge for the journal is $1,365, and this is for a ten-week turnaround time on an article. The turnaround time is the time between submission and publication and includes the peer-review process. For an additional fee, the journal also offers these turnaround times:

2 weeks       $3,000
4 weeks       $2,800
8 weeks       $2,600

What are the ethical aspects of paying more in order to get an article published faster? If an author pays a higher amount, does this increase a paper’s likelihood of being accepted?

I know of one other publisher that does this, the Clute Institute, located here in the Denver area.

The Clute Institute’s rapid review charge

The submission fees are in addition to the article processing charges.

Baishideng is not currently on my list of questionable publishers, though it was in the past. They requested a re-evaluation in June, 2013, and I removed the publisher from my list then.

It seems that having financial transactions between scholarly authors and scholarly publishers is not a good idea. This is a weakness of the gold open-access model.

I learned about this through Diana Winters, the Director of Academic Publishing Services at the Drexel University College of Medicine. She says the pay-for-a-faster-review policy is “bad for science in all sorts of ways. Suppose two teams are hot on the trail of some big finding: one of them can buy a 2-week review and one of them can only afford the 6-week review. The team who can pay more scoops the team that can’t.”

She also refers to a COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) policy that states, “Journals should have policies and systems in place to ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions (e.g. advertising departments should operate independently from editorial departments).”

Diana also points to a statement by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, that says,

Editorial decisions should be based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions. Those decisions should not be influenced by commercial interests, personal relationships or agendas, or findings that are negative or that credibly challenge accepted wisdom.

Thus it seems that Baishideng’s Premier Publication Service is ethically questionable. We encourage Baishideng to perform a self-audit and make sure its editorial practices are in line with scholarly publishing industry standards and conventions.

Hat tip: Diana Winters

A paper published in the BioMed Central Journal Nutrition & Metabolism is a near exact match of a paper published earlier in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics.

The 2008 paper, “Role of cytochrome P450 in drug interactions,” is a review article purportedly written by Zakia Bibi. The article’s text matches almost exactly that of the 1998 article “Clinically important pharmacokinetic drug–drug interactions: role of cytochrome P450 enzymes” by E. Tanaka of the University of Tsukuba in Japan. The text string in the Bibi article is almost entirely replicated from Tanaka, including each section of the article (e.g. Introduction, Discussion, etc), most punctuation, and the references.

The suspect article.

The original article.

The allegedly plagiarized article has been cited 37 times according to Google Scholar and 14 times according to Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database. These citations really belong to the author of the 1998 paper, which was not published online until 2002.

Will retracting the article lower the journal’s impact factor?

Since 2010, concerned scholars have reported the plagiarism numerous times to Nutrition & Metabolism. The journal lists M. Mahmood Hussain, a professor at the Dept. of Cell Biology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York as its Editor-in-Chief, yet he does not include his editorship on his C.V.

The journal’s Editor-in-Chief.

He has not returned any emails regarding the alleged plagiarism. Responding to one email reporting the plagiarism, a February 13, 2013 email sent from BioMed Central’s journal development editor, Lucy Abel, says, “I am contacting you on behalf of BioMed Central, the publisher of Nutrition & Metabolism. Thank you for alerting us to this claim of plagiarism, which we are taking extremely seriously. We are investigating as a matter of urgency, and would appreciate if you could send us a copy of the original article.” Yet the issue still remains unresolved.

BioMed Central has failed miserably in this case. The publisher needs to take immediate action on the suspect paper and should apologize to Dr. E. Tanaka, the author of the original paper. BMC should also apologize to all scholars in this field and especially to those who have been attempting to set the record straight since 2010.

Hat tip: Dr. Terrence P. Delaney, University of Vermont

Here are three news items that relate to predatory open-access scholarly publishers.

We’ll publishing anything!

1. Physicist Lorenzo Iorio served as an editorial board member for Science Publications’ journal Physics International. His specialties are general relativity and gravitation, and he was the only one of the journal’s editorial board members with these specialties.

He noticed that the journal published a semi-amateur level article entitled, The Theory of Metarelativity: Beyond Albert Einstein’s Relativity. He realized that the journal’s editors did not refer this article to him for peer review, for he surely would have recommended against its publication. During his tenure as member of the editorial board, in fact, he only received one manuscript from his field for review.

So it appears that the journal’s editors sent the article to reviewers without sufficient knowledge of the topic, and the paper got accepted. But because he’s the only editorial board member whose specialties match the paper’s topic, it looked like Dr. Iorio must have been the one to approve the paper.

He resigned his position on the editorial board.

Unoriginal

2. I recently added the International Journal of Latest Research in Engineering and Computing (IJLREC) to my list of predatory, standalone journals. The “Publishing Head” (that’s what the journal calls him) is Prof. H. K. L Gill, and the journal is published in India’s Haryana state.

The journal has published a single issue so far, volume 1, number 1. Unfortunately, some of the articles here were previously published in other journals, but the authors’ names and the article titles have been changed. One example is the article “An Analysis of Fuzzy Approach for Detecting Anomalous Behaviour with E-mail Traffic.”

Duplicative, duplicitious

This article was previously published with a slightly different title  in the Proceedings of the 4th Australian Digital Forensics Conference, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. A copy is deposited in the Edith Cowan University’s institutional repository called Research Online.

The original work.

This appears to be a brazen theft of intellectual property!

3. Finally, speaking of intellectual property, it looks like Reed Elsevier is the victim here:

Not really connected to Elsevier

I contacted a friend at Elsevier, and she confirmed that the Journal of Coastal Life Medicine has no right to display the Elsevier logo. Of course the irony here is that adding the Elsevier logo will make many in the west NOT submit to the journal, though it’s likely the journal’s publisher is expecting the opposite.

The journal’s articles mimic the formatting of articles in Reed Elsevier journals as well.

What is coastal life medicine anyway?

Hat tips:
Lorenzo Iorio
Vladimir Alexandrov
Joacim Näslund

Late to the party

A new publisher called the Institute of Doctors Engineers and Scientists (IDES) has launched with 99 open-access journals.

The sole proprietor of this “institute” is Vinu V. Das. He’s from Kerala, India, home to a growing number of predatory publishers, but he also appears to be based part-time in Amsterdam.

This publisher is also simultaneously launching ten new “associate networks.” These are disciplinary organizations that all claim to be not-for-profit. One of these is the Association of Computer Electronics and Electrical Engineers (ACEEE). I think these groups are designed to make the publisher look more legitimate.

The company purports to have offices in Europe, Indonesia, India, and the United States, but the U.S. “office” is really just a mail-forwarding service.

Dr. Das’ LinkedIn profile, with typos.

This operation is new, and I did not see any published articles or editorial boards when I studied the website. Despite not having editorial boards, all the journals are accepting submissions. The publisher requires that authors sign over copyright.

The owner, Dr. Das, is currently carrying out a massive spam campaign, soliciting editorial board members. I was forwarded a copy of this spam by a statistician who was invited to serve on the editorial board of the IDES International Journal of Dental Science.

The article processing charge is US $60, but members of the affiliated associations are granted a small discount. The publisher also requires a 5% processing charge on each order.

Each of the journals claims to be indexed in dozens of services, many of which are not abstracting and indexing services. For example, all the journals claim to be “indexed” in J-Stor. Also, the publisher has a webpage called “Plagiarism policy,” and some of the page’s content is lifted from other publishers without attribution.

I have added this publisher to my list, so when you receive a spam email from Dr. Vas, I recommend that you decline his request to serve on an editorial board. I also recommend against submitting papers to any of the 99 journals.

Beware the IDES of Dr. Das.

Hat tip: Dr. Eric Bair

Appendix: List of IDES journals as of November 5, 2013:

1. ACEE International Journal on Civil and Environmental Engineering
2. ACEE International Journal on Transportation and Urban Development
3. ACEEE International Journal on Communication
4. ACEEE International Journal on Computer Networks
5. ACEEE International Journal on Control System and Instrumentation
6. ACEEE International Journal on Electrical and Power Engineering
7. ACEEE International Journal on Information Technology
8. ACEEE International Journal on Network Security
9. ACEEE International Journal on Signal and Image Processing
10. ACEEE International Journal on Software Engineering
11. ACEEE International Journal on VLSI and Embedded System
12. AMAE International Journal on Manufacturing and Material Science
13. AMAE International Journal on Production and Industrial Engineering
14. IDES Case Study of Dental Science
15. IDES International Journal of Aerodynamics
16. IDES International Journal of Aerospace and Avionics
17. IDES International Journal of Algebra
18. IDES International Journal of Chemistry
19. IDES International Journal of Dental Science
20. IDES International Journal of Economics
21. IDES International Journal of Ophthalmology
22. IDES International Journal of Pediatrics
23. IDES International Journal of Psychology and Counseling
24. IDES International Journal of Space Technology
25. IDES International Journal of Statistics and Probability
26. IDES International Journal of Taxation
27. IDES International Journal of Transplantation Research
28. IDES Journal of Advances in Operations Research
29. IDES Journal of Advances in Optical Technologies
30. IDES Journal of Advances in Orthopedics
31. IDES Journal of Advances in Pharmacological Sciences
32. IDES Journal of Advances in Urology
33. IDES Journal of Advances in Virology
34. IDES Journal of Agriculture and Food Science
35. IDES Journal of Air and Water Law
36. IDES Journal of Analytical Chemistry
37. IDES Journal of Anatomy Research
38. IDES Journal of Applied Electrochemistry
39. IDES Journal of Applied Mathematics
40. IDES Journal of Applied Physics
41. IDES Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy
42. IDES Journal of Ayurvedic Research and Practices
43. IDES Journal of Banking and Finance
44. IDES Journal of Botany and Plant Science
45. IDES Journal of Business Management
46. IDES Journal of Cancer Epidemiology
47. IDES Journal of Cardiovascular Psychiatry and Neurology
48. IDES Journal of Chemotherapy Research and Practice
49. IDES Journal of Clinical and Developmental Immunology
50. IDES Journal of Computational Economics and Finance
51. IDES Journal of Computational Intelligence and Bioinformatics
52. IDES Journal of Corporate Law
53. IDES Journal of Cost Analysis
54. IDES Journal of Criminal Justice System
55. IDES Journal of Dermatology Research and Practice
56. IDES Journal of Differential Equations
57. IDES Journal of Discrete Mathematics
58. IDES Journal of Engineering Mathematics
59. IDES Journal of English Literature
60. IDES Journal of Financial Management
61. IDES Journal of Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences
62. IDES Journal of Fluid Dynamics
63. IDES Journal of Foreign Trade and Consumer Management
64. IDES Journal of Gastroenterology Research and Practice
65. IDES Journal of General Medical Science
66. IDES Journal of Genetics Engineering
67. IDES Journal of Global Trade and Customs
68. IDES Journal of Homeopathic Research and Practices
69. IDES Journal of Horticultural and Crop Science
70. IDES Journal of Human Resource Development
71. IDES Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
72. IDES Journal of Information Technology and Library Science
73. IDES Journal of Inorganic Chemistry
74. IDES Journal of International Arbitration
75. IDES Journal of Knowledge Management and Information Technology
76. IDES Journal of Labour Law and Industrial Relations
77. IDES Journal of Macro and Micro Economics
78. IDES Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
79. IDES Journal of Microbiology and Molecular Biology
80. IDES Journal of Molecular Engineering
81. IDES Journal of Organic Chemistry
82. IDES Journal of Osteoporosis Research
83. IDES Journal of Physical Chemistry
84. IDES Journal of Physical Science
85. IDES Journal of Planning and Administration of Education
86. IDES Journal of Plasmas and Polymers
87. IDES Journal of Political Science and Governance
88. IDES Journal of Pregnancy Research and Practice
89. IDES Journal of Public Justice System
90. IDES Journal of Quality Assurance and Management
91. IDES Journal of Recent Trends in Oncology
92. IDES Journal of Sociology and Anthropology
93. IDES Journal of Surgical Oncology
94. IDES Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical Chemistry
95. IDES Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics
96. IDES Journal of Veterinary Science
97. IDES Journals of Biotechnology and Biochemistry
98. IDES Research and Practice of Dental Science
99. International Journal on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology

IC Value?

Index Copernicus is a Poland-based company that offers several services related to scholarly publishing. One of their products is a journal rating system, and I am concerned about the methods they use for ranking journals and the high proportion of predatory journals in their database.

Looking at the IC Journals Master List 2012 one sees the beginning of the list sorted by “ICV” or Index Copernicus Value. The list is sorted with the highest-ranking journals at the top. The second highest scoring journal is Acta Myologica, with a score of 53.44. This journal beat out Science, Nature, and many other top science journals.

Looking at the information page for this journal at the Index Copernicus website, one sees many errors. First, there is a dead image link. The journal deals with myology, the study of muscles, but is misclassified by IC as a humanities journal.

The page shows the journal’s earlier scores from 2005-2009, increasing from 5.56 to 7.18. (I have observed that Index Copernicus values always go up, never down). Missing are the values for 2010-2011. The 2012 value is an astounding 53.44, and there’s no explanation why the value has increased so much. Also, the page mislabels Acta Myologica as an English Title (it’s really Latin).

Many errors

Numerous predatory journals have IC values, and they often display their IC value prominently on their websites. They do this because they want to attract article submissions, and the article processing charges they bring in. The value may look like an authentic metric to potential authors. It bears a resemblance to the impact factor, so naïve authors may accept it as such.

Predatory publishers brag about their IC values.

The IC Evaluation Methodology is here. It seems heavily weighted towards publishing practice rather than scientific impact.

I find the Index Copernicus value (IC Value) highly questionable. In fact, I’d say it’s a pretty worthless measure, especially given how many predatory publishers have established values, values that increase every year.

Designed to fool.

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

Worst of the worst.

The Photon Foundation is a predatory publisher of fifty bogus journals. This publisher, which uses Google Sites as its publishing platform, has been on my list for some time. I recently learned that the publisher is trying to use deception to get manuscript submissions from legitimate journals with titles similar to its journals.

The publisher uses fake names for its journals’ editors-in-chief. It also  uses bogus metrics and bogus standard numbers:

Deception.

Its journals have no editorial boards that I can find, and I have no idea whatsoever where this operation is based or who the owner is. It uses yahoo.com email addresses. The publisher misrepresents itself as a “foundation.” It promises a twelve-day peer review process and does not state what its article processing charges are. The publisher provides links to legitimate scholarly organizations, a tactic to make itself appear legitimate. It’s almost as if the Photon Foundation is intentionally trying to meet every single one of the criteria I’ve established for determining predatory open-access publishers.

Some of the Photon Foundation’s journal titles match exactly the titles of legitimate journals. One example is Photon’s Journal of Parasitology. The original Journal of Parasitology is co-published by Allen Press, Inc. in Lawrence, Kansas, and the American Society of Parasitologists. Allen Press requested that Google, Inc. remove the intentionally duplicate journal,  but Google declined to take any action.

Lately, the Photon Foundation has been spamming members of the society, soliciting manuscripts for their journal with the same title as the authentic society journal. Photon is exploiting its duplicative journal title to deceive authors and steal potential article submissions.

I strongly recommend against submitting articles to any of the Photon Foundation journals. If anyone can determine where this publisher is based and who’s behind it, I would be grateful for that information.

Hat tips: Peter Burns, David Blair

Appendix: List of Photon Foundation journals as of November 23, 2013

1. International Journal of Agriculture
2. International Journal of Agriculture
3. International Journal of Biochemistry
4. International Journal of Biotechnology
5. International Journal of Business Management
6. International Journal of Electrical and Electronics
7. International Journal of Medicinal Plants
8. International Journal of Photocatalysis
9. International Journal of Proteomics
10. Journal of Anatomy
11. Journal of Antimicrobials
12. Journal of Applied Biochemistry
13. Journal of Biodiversity
14. Journal of Bioprocess Technology
15. Journal of Chemical Science
16. Journal of Civil Engineering
17. Journal of Computer Science
18. Journal of Ecology
19. Journal of Economics
20. Journal of Education
21. Journal of Energy and Environmental Science
22. Journal of Ethnobiology and Traditional Medicine
23. Journal of Food Technology
24. Journal of Free Radicals and Antioxidants
25. Journal of Genetics
26. Journal of Geography and Geology
27. Journal of Human Disease
28. Journal of Humanities and Social Science
29. Journal of Infectious Diseases
30. Journal of Insect Science
31. Journal of Journalism & Mass Communication
32. Journal of Language and Literature
33. Journal of Library and Information Science
34. Journal of Materials Science
35. Journal of Mathematics
36. Journal of Mechanical Engineering
37. Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
38. Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
39. Journal of Orthopaedics
40. Journal of Parasitology
41. Journal of Physics
42. Journal of Physiology and Health
43. Journal of Phytochemistry
44. Journal of Planning and Architecture
45. Journal of Plant Pathology
46. Journal of Plant Physiology
47. Journal of Psychiatry
48. Journal of Water Research
49. Photon Journal of Neurology
50. Photon Journal of Pediatrics

Easy ticket to an impact factor publication

Faisalabad, Pakistan-based Medwell Journals was on my very first list of questionable publishers in 2010, and it continues there today. One of Medwell’s journals is the Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, and this journal actually has an impact factor.

This journal is clear evidence that the impact factor is not a measure of quality, for this is a bottom-tier journal. The Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances has an impact factor of 0.390. On the other hand, the journal has a very large editorial board, whose 70 members are listed without their affiliations, if any. Moreover, the publisher tries to hide the fact that it’s based in Pakistan, and it does not clearly state what its article processing charges are.

It’s evidently very easy to get published in the Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances. In fact, it’s so easy that the journal has 24 large issues per year to accommodate all the submissions it receives and accepts for publication. It’s clear the publisher is making a lot of money off this single journal. However, the papers appear to be generally of very low quality, and some are off-topic.

An article about concrete in a veterinary journal

One example is the above article, “Effect of Different Cure Conditions on Compressive Strength of Concrete Having Different Properties.” The paper is about curing concrete and has nothing to do with “animal and veterinary advances.” Also, the publisher is not investing in copyediting, as a quick analysis of the articles reveals.

Many countries, universities, and departments require that their faculty publish in impact factor journals for promotion, tenure, and annual evaluations. Somehow, the Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances has managed to get a legitimate impact factor, so it’s a gold mine for the publisher, and dream-come-true for authors needing a quick and easy publication in a journal with a legitimate impact factor.

Also, if you need academic credit that involves serving on the editorial board of an impact factor journal, this is a good place to go, and I suspect it involves very little if any work.

So, the impact factor is not a measure of quality, as this journal proves. I am keeping Medwell Journals on my list of questionable publishers and recommend that researchers not submit papers to any of their journals, impact factor or not.

Hat tip: Dr. Germán D. Mendoza Martínez

Avoid this publisher.

Two to avoid

WSEAS = World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society

NAUN = North Atlantic University Union

These two companies are owned by the same individual and are all about profit and not about scholarship, in my opinion. WSEAS is the original company, NAUN appeared more recently. Both organizations gratuitously use the terms “academy,” “society,” and “union.” They are really just for-profit companies seeking easy income.

WSEAS publishes 18 journals; NAUN publishes 19. Their journals and conferences all have a broad scope (e.g., International Journal of Computers). This means that more papers and talks fall within each journal’s or each conference’s scope, so the owners can make more money. Conferences are a very lucrative business — and many universities subsidize their faculty’s conference travel. These companies are set up to exploit this situation.

If you’ve been spammed by either of these two firms, you’ll remember that their conferences often have their “deadlines extended” and each extension generates another spam email. I think these extensions are planned in advance and provide another excuse to send out additional spam emails to busy researchers.

Their conferences are expensive; registration is typically €450 for non-members and €400 for members, but membership costs €100. The registration fee includes the publication of accepted presentations in the conference proceedings and the “chance” to publish an extended version in one of the groups’ journals, perhaps for an additional fee.

I think these companies just pander to university faculty needing scholarly activities to add to their CVs — conference presentations and journal articles.

Like OMICS, these organizations hold multiple conferences in the same location at the same time. For example, both WSEAS and NAUN will be holding a total of ten conferences in Salerno, Italy from June 3-5, 2014:

North Atlantic University Union conferences:

• 3rd International Conference on Energy Systems, Environment, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ICESEEI ’14)
• 5th International Conference on Circuits, Systems, Control, Signals (CSCS ’14) 

World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society conferences:

• 10th WSEAS International Conference on Applied and Theoretical Mechanics (MECHANICS ’14)
• 7th WSEAS International Conference on Engineering Mechanics, Structures, Engineering Geology (EMESEG ’14)
• 7th WSEAS International Conference on Urban Planning and Transportation (UPT ’14)
• 7th WSEAS International Conference on Urban Planning and Transportation (UPT ’14)
• 2nd WSEAS International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Audio Processing (ASAP ’14)
• 7th WSEAS International Conference on Environmental and Geological Science and Engineering (EG ’14)
• 5th International Conference on Circuits, Systems, Control, Signals (CSCS ’14
• 3rd International Conference on Energy Systems, Environment, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ICESEEI ’14

Ten different conferences at the same time and place

Having so many conferences at the same place and time saves money for the organizer but treats conference attendees like they are cattle.

There’s some evidence that the two companies duplicate articles among their journals. For example, the article “Comparison of regression models based on nonparametric estimation techniques: Prediction of GDP in Turkey” appears both in NAUN’s International Journal of Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences and its International Journal of Energy. I also discovered it is not very difficult to find instances of plagiarism in both companies’ journals.

I strongly recommend that scholars not submit papers to WSEAS and NAUN journals, and I strongly recommend that scholars not attend their conferences.

Appendix:

1. List of NAUN journals as of December 1, 2013

1. International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Informatics
2. International Journal of Biology and Biomedical Engineering
3. International Journal of Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing
4. International Journal of Communications
5. International Journal of Computers
6. International Journal of Computers and Communications
7. International Journal of Economics and Statistics
8. International Journal of Education and Information Technologies
9. International Journal of Energy
10. International Journal of Energy and Environment
11. International Journal of Fuzzy Systems and Advanced Applications
12. International Journal of Geology
13. International Journal of Materials
14. International Journal of Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences
15. International Journal of Mathematics and Computers in Simulation
16. International Journal of Mechanics
17. International Journal of Neural Networks and Advanced Applications
18. International Journal of Pure Mathematics
19. International Journal of Systems Applications, Engineering & Development 

2. List of WSEAS journals as of December 1, 2013:

1. WSEAS Transactions on Advances in Engineering Education
2. WSEAS Transactions on Applied and Theoretical Mechanics
3. WSEAS Transactions on Biology and Biomedicine
4. WSEAS Transactions on Business and Economics
5. WSEAS Transactions on Circuits and Systems
6. WSEAS Transactions on Communications
7. WSEAS Transactions on Environment and Development
8. WSEAS Transactions on Fluid Mechanics
9. WSEAS Transactions on Heat and Mass Transfer
10. WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications
11. WSEAS Transactions on Mathematics
12. WSEAS Transactions on Power Systems
13. WSEAS Transactions on Signal Processing
14. WSEAS Transactions on Systems
15. WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control
16. WSEAS Transactions on Acoustics and Music (Discontinued)
17. WSEAS Transactions on Computer Research (Discontinued)
18. WSEAS Transactions on Electronics (Discontinued)

This is no Hathi Trust

Mehta Press has been around since early 2010, but it has recently revamped its website and now boasts an amazing number of journals. I count 192 journals in the Mehta Press portfolio, but most of them are mere templates, lacking content and editorial boards. Because the publisher recently launched a bunch of new journals, it is spamming for manuscripts and editorial board members. Mehta Press is based in Rajkot, Gujarat, India. Its website is spare and offers the bare minimum amount of information. There are many prominent grammatical errors on the site, including this on the main page:

Unconventional term

The journals all promise a fast peer review: “The review process will ordinarily require two weeks.” My guess is that no authentic peer review process is occurring at all. In researching this publisher, I stumbled on the suspect article entitled “Out there: A preliminary discussion of alien civilizations” by Shelley Thompson of New Braunfels, Texas in the Mehta Press Journal of Space Exploration.

I was ready to trash the publisher for accepting what appears to me to be a pseudo-scientific article when, after looking for plagiarism in the article, I was led to a nearly duplicate article by the same author in the Elsevier journal Physics Procedia. The Elsevier article is entitled “On the Frontier of Knowledge: A Discussion of Alien Civilizations.” Both the Elsevier article and the Mehta Press articles contain a lot of the same text — they’re essentially duplicates.

Bottom-tier journals

Elsevier has a 20 Procedia journals; they all contain conference papers and are generally of low quality. I have reported plagiarism in Elsevier’s Procedia journals in the past. I really think they should dump this series because here I am again finding duplication in a Procedia journal.

Elsevier needs to investigate this duplicate publication and make some tough decisions about its Procedia series because in this case, at least, Elsevier is on the same level as Mehta Press.

Appendix: List of Mehta Press journals as of December 4, 2013

Journals by Alphabetically [sic]

1. Current Chemical Research
2. Current Computer Science
3. Chemistry Research Journal A – Analytical Sciences
4. Chemistry Research Journal B – Biochemistry
5. Chemistry Research Journal C – Computational Chemistry & Molecular Modelling
6. Chemistry Research Journal D – Environmental Chemistry
7. Chemistry Research Journal E – Organic Chemistry
8. Chemistry Research Journal F – Medicinal Chemistry
9. Chemistry Research Journal G – Physical Chemistry
10. Computer Research Journal A – Artificial Intelligence
11. Computer Research Journal B – Computational Theory and Mathematics
12. Computer Research Journal C – Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided
13. Computer Research Journal D – Computer Networks and Communications
14. Computer Research Journal E – Computer Science Applications
15. Computer Research Journal F – Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
16. Computer Research Journal G – Hardware and Architecture
17. Computer Research Journal H – Human-Computer Interaction
18. Computer Research Journal I – Information Systems
19. Computer Research Journal J – Signal Processing
20. Engineering Research Journal A – Aerospace Engineering
21. Engineering Research Journal B – Automotive Engineering
22. Engineering Research Journal C – Biomedical Engineering
23. Engineering Research Journal D – Civil & Structural Engineering
24. Engineering Research Journal E – Computational Mechanics
25. Engineering Research Journal F – Control & Systems Engineering
26. Engineering Research Journal G – Electrical & Electronic Engineering
27. Engineering Research Journal H – Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering
28. Engineering Research Journal I – Mechanical Engineering
29. Engineering Research Journal J – Ocean Engineering
30. Engineering Research Journal K – Safety, Risk, Reliability & Quality
31. Journal of Aesthetics
32. Journal of Agricultural & Rural Geography
33. Journal of Analysis
34. Journal of Analytic Philosophy
35. Journal of Ancient & Classical History
36. Journal of Ancient & Classical Literature
37. Journal of Animals & Their Mangement [sic]
38. Journal of Anthropology of Art & Media
39. Journal of Anthropology of Diaspora, Forced Migration & Refugeeism
40. Journal of Anthropology of Gender & Sexuality
41. Journal of Anthropology of Globalization
42. Journal of Anthropology of Race, Ethnicity & Identity
43. Journal of Anthropology of Religion
44. Journal of Art History & Criticism
45. Journal of Art History & Theory
46. Journal of Astrobiology
47. Journal of Atmospheric Dynamics
48. Journal of Atmospheric Phenomena
49. Journal of Atmospheric Structures
50. Journal of Behavioral & Social Science Issues
51. Journal of Bioenergetics
52. Journal of Bioethics & Medical Ethics
53. Journal of Biological Anthropology
54. Journal of Biological Oceanography
55. Journal of Bone Diseases
56. Journal of Cardiology & Cardiovascular Diseases
57. Journal of Celestial Objects
58. Journal of Cell Membrane
59. Journal of Cell Motility
60. Journal of Cell Physiology
61. Journal of Cellular Structures
62. Journal of Child & Family Health & Social Care
63. Journal of Child Abuse
64. Journal of Circulatory Physiology
65. Journal of Climatology
66. Journal of Clinical Diagnostic Tests
67. Journal of Cloning
68. Journal of Communication & Public Policy
69. Journal of Computational Linguistics
70. Journal of Consumer Culture & Consumption
71. Journal of Cosmology
72. Journal of Demographic History
73. Journal of Dental Fixtures
74. Journal of Dental Procedures
75. Journal of Dermatologic Agents
76. Journal of Dermatologic Surgical Procedures
77. Journal of Design & Graphic Design
78. Journal of Development Policy
79. Journal of Developmental & Educational Psychology
80. Journal of Diagnostic Radiology
81. Journal of Digestive Physiology
82. Journal of Digital Culture & the Information Age
83. Journal of Diversity, Culture & Ethnicity
84. Journal of Earth Structure
85. Journal of Economic & Political Anthropology
86. Journal of Economic Commodities
87. Journal of Education & Public Policy
88. Journal of Engineering
89. Journal of Environmental Ethics
90. Journal of Environmental Geology
91. Journal of Ethnic & Immigration History
92. Journal of Ethnography
93. Journal of Evolutionary Mechanisms
94. Journal of Evolutionary Systematics
95. Journal of Experimental & Cognitive Psychology
96. Journal of Feminist Theory
97. Journal of Fertilization
98. Journal of Film Theory
99. Journal of Gender & History
100. Journal of Gender & Politics
101. Journal of Gender & Sexuality
102. Journal of Genetic Mutation
103. Journal of Genomic Analysis Tools
104. Journal of Genomic Medicine
105. Journal of Geochemistry
106. Journal of Geography of Globalization
107. Journal of Geologic Time
108. Journal of Geomorphology
109. Journal of Geophysics
110. Journal of Geriatric Health
111. Journal of GIS, Remote Sensing & Cartography
112. Journal of Glaciology
113. Journal of Global Politics
114. Journal of Globalization & Development
115. Journal of Hemic & Lymphatic Diseases
116. Journal of Historical Linguistics
117. Journal of History of Cinema
118. Journal of History of Ideas
119. Journal of History of Religion
120. Journal of History of Science & Medicine
121. Journal of Human Geography
122. Journal of Immune System
123. Journal of Interventional Radiology
124. Journal of Lipoproteins
125. Journal of Marine Geology
126. Journal of Mass Communication
127. Journal of Mass Media & Society
128. Journal of Medical Anthropology
129. Journal of Medieval Religious History
130. Journal of Menopause
131. Journal of Metabolism
132. Journal of Metaphysics
133. Journal of Mineralogy
134. Journal of Muscle
135. Journal of Muscular Diseases
136. Journal of Museum & Heritage Studies
137. Journal of Mycology
138. Journal of Nervous System Physiology
139. Journal of Neurodegenerative & Cerebrovascular Diseases
140. Journal of Neuropsychology & Physiological Psychology
141. Journal of Nutritional & Metabolic Diseases
142. Journal of Occupational Injuries & Exposures
143. Journal of Pediatric & Congenital Heart Diseases
144. Journal of Pediatric Psychiatry
145. Journal of Performing Art & Music
146. Journal of Phenomenology
147. Journal of Photography History & Theory
148. Journal of Physics & Astronomy
149. Journal of Physiological Processes
150. Journal of Plant Biotechnology
151. Journal of Plant Cell Biology
152. Journal of Poisoning
153. Journal of Political Ethics
154. Journal of Politics of Development
155. Journal of Population & Development
156. Journal of Population Dynamics
157. Journal of Probability
158. Journal of Proteins
159. Journal of Religion & Politics
160. Journal of Religion & Theology
161. Journal of Renaissance Art
162. Journal of Renal Physiology
163. Journal of Respiratory Physiology
164. Journal of Respiratory System Agents
165. Journal of Respiratory Tract Diseases
166. Journal of Semantics
167. Journal of Skin Diseases
168. Journal of Social & Cultural Geography
169. Journal of Social Change & Development
170. Journal of Social Issues & Public Policy
171. Journal of Social Philosophy
172. Journal of Social Problems, Social Services, Social Work
173. Journal of Social Psychology
174. Journal of Sociology of Culture
175. Journal of Sociology of Globalization
176. Journal of Sociology of Science & Technology
177. Journal of Solar System
178. Journal of Space Exploration
179. Journal of Speech Science
180. Journal of Spirituality
181. Journal of Syntax
182. Journal of Systems Biology
183. Journal of Teeth
184. Journal of Theoretical Linguistics
185. Journal of Urologic & Male Genital Diseases
186. Journal of Western Culture
187. Journal of World History
188. Journal of Youth Culture
189. Journal on Diseases of The Oral Cavity
190. Physics Research Journal A – Condensed Matter Physics
191. Physics Research Journal B – Nuclear Physics
192. Physics Research Journal C -

The monographic series Reef Resources Assessment and Management Technical Papers has been hijacked as an open-access journal.

This is what the authentic (print) publication looks like.

The above cover image shows the first number from the authentic series (this may be the only issue every published — I cannot find any others). It was published by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, based in New Caledonia. I cannot find a website for the authentic serial.

Here’s the hijacked version of the publication:

This is completely bogus.

It’s immediately clear upon inspection that there’s something “fishy” about this journal. First, its URL is this: http://behaviorsciences.com/ Second, on the website’s main page, it says,

Reef Resources Assessment and Management Technical Paper (RRAMT) ISSN: 1607-7393, is dedicated to publish research papers, reviews, case studies and short communications from all disciplines of science and technology. By not excluding papers on the basis of subject area, RRAMT facilitates the research and wishes to publish papers as long as they are technically correct and scientifically motivated.

Third, the bogus journal claims metrics and standard numbers that it doesn’t really have:

Nothing is true.

The bogus journal claims 37 published volumes, despite having “started” in 2001. I found that much of its content is lifted from other scholarly websites. Here’s an example:

This is the authentic article from an institutional repository.

This is the adulterated version of the article in the hijacked journal

The authentic article is from here; the bogus copy is here.

Conclusion: This is another instance of a journal hijacking. Most definitely, do not submit any papers to this stolen journal.

Hat tip: Reza Tooshmalani

Not very “advance”

An ambitious scholarly open-access publisher has just appeared, launching with 72 new journals. The publisher is Advance Research Publications.

None of the journals has any articles, and the majority have empty editorial boards, yet each journal is accepting article submissions.

It’s clear the publisher is likely based in India, even though its headquarters location is not stated anywhere on the site.  Regarding article processing charges, the publisher states, “Publication fees for an article is Rs. 1999/ 99 USD. We have waved off the Publication fees for the first issue of 2014 and hence publication is absolutely free.”

Many of the journal titles contain the term “advance” used improperly as an adjective. The conventional usage in a journal title is “advanced.” Some of the titles are listed with what appear to be notes, such as “not good.” Here’s an example:

Not good indeed.

Other problems I observed with this publisher include:

• They promise a two-week turnaround time for peer review, saying “Acceptance Notification: within 15 days of submission.”
• They charge an extra fee for color illustrations.
• They make false and boastful statements: “Advance Research Publication is the only platform wherein you are getting Science, Technology, Medical and Management Journals on Open Access Platform.”
• The “contact us” link on the various pages does not work, nor do the social media links.
  

In its haste to start earning money, this publisher has launched despite not really being ready. An examination of the site reveals an amateurish effort, belying the word “advance” which appears so many times. There is nothing advanced about Advance Research Publications, and I recommend against serving on its editorial boards and against submitting papers to its many journals. 

Appendix: List of Advance Research Publications journals as of December 18, 2013 (listed as they appear on the publisher’s website):

1. Anusanadhan: A Multidisciplinary International Journal (In Hindi)
2. IIR Journal of Advance Innovations, Thoughts & Ideas
3. IIR Journal of Engineering Research and Applications
4. IIR Journal of Interdisciplinary Science & Technology
5. IIR Journal of Undergraduate Academic Research
6. IIR Journal of Young Scientist
7. Journal of Advance Research in Accounting and Finance Management
8. Journal of Advance Research in Aeronautics and Space Science
9. Journal of Advance Research in Agriculture Science & Technology
10. Journal of Advance Research in Alternative Energy, Environment and Ecology
11. Journal of Advance Research in Applied Artificial Intelligence and Neural network
12. Journal of Advance Research in Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
13. Journal of Advance Research in Applied Mathematics and Statistics
14. Journal of Advance Research in Applied Mechanics & Computational Fluid Dynamcis [sic]
15. Journal of Advance Research in Applied Physics and Applications
16. Journal of Advance Research in Astrophysics and Astronomy
17. Journal of Advance Research in Automotive Technology and Transportation System
18. Journal of Advance Research in Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy
19. Journal of Advance Research in BioChemistry and Pharmacology
20. Journal of Advance Research in BioInformatics and Computational Biology
21. Journal of Advance Research in BioScience and BioTechnology
22. Journal of Advance Research in Business Law and Technology Management (REMOVE INTERNATIONAL)
23. Journal of Advance Research in Civil and Environmental Engineering
24. Journal of Advance Research in Cloud Computing, Virtualization and Web Applications
25. Journal of Advance Research in Computer Graphics and Multimedia Technology
26. Journal of Advance Research in Computer Technology & Software Applications
27. Journal of Advance Research in Construction and Architectural Engineering
28. Journal of Advance Research in Dental and Oral Health
29. Journal of Advance Research in Economics and Business Management (REMOVE INTERNATIONAL)
30. Journal of Advance Research in Electrical Engineering and Technology
31. Journal of Advance Research in Electronics Engineering and Technology
32. Journal of Advance Research in Embedded System
33. Journal of Advance Research in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMES Management
34. Journal of Advance Research in Food Science and Nutrition
35. Journal of Advance Research in Genome Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy
36. Journal of Advance Research in Glass, Leather and Plastic Technology
37. Journal of Advance Research in Healthcare and Medical Informatics
38. Journal of Advance Research in HR and Organizational Management (NOT GOOD)
39. Journal of Advance Research in Humanities and Social Sciences
40. Journal of Advance Research in Image Processing and Applications
41. Journal of Advance Research in Information Systems and Technology
42. Journal of Advance Research in Information Technology & Management
43. Journal of Advance Research in Instrumentation and Control Engineering
44. Journal of Advance Research in Intelligence Systems and Robotics
45. Journal of Advance Research in Journalism and Mass Communication
46. Journal of Advance Research in Library and Information Science
47. Journal of Advance Research in Life Sciences and Applications
48. Journal of Advance Research in Manufacturing, Material Science & Metallurgical Engineering
49. Journal of Advance Research in Mechanical Engineering and Technology
50. Journal of Advance Research in Medical Science and Technology
51. Journal of Advance Research in Medicine
52. Journal of Advance Research in Microbiology
53. Journal of Advance Research in Microelectronics and VLSI Design
54. Journal of Advance Research in Mining, Fuel and Mineral Engineering
55. Journal of Advance Research in Modeling and Simulation
56. Journal of Advance Research in NanoScience and NanoTechnology
57. Journal of Advance Research in Networking and Communication Engineering
58. Journal of Advance Research in Nursing Science
59. Journal of Advance Research in Operational and Marketing Management
60. Journal of Advance Research in Petroleum Technology & Management
61. Journal of Advance Research in Pharaceutical [sic] Sciences
62. Journal of Advance Research in Physical Education
63. Journal of Advance Research in Polymer and Textile Engineering
64. Journal of Advance Research in Power Electronics & Power Systems
65. Journal of Advance Research in Production and Industrial Engineering
66. Journal of Advance Research in Psychology & Psychotherapy
67. Journal of Advance Research in Public Policy and Administration (NOT GOOD)
68. Journal of Advance Research in Remote Sensing & GeoScience
69. Journal of Advance Research in Service Management (REMOVE INTERNATIONAL)
70. Journal of Advance Research in Signal Processing and Applications
71. Journal of Advance Research in Veterinary Science and Technology
72. Journal of Advance Research in Wireless, Mobile & Telecommunication

Pathological?

A researcher agreed to peer-review a manuscript submitted to the Taylor & Francis journal Biocontrol Science and Technology. The researcher is Dr. S.S. Narwal, who is also editor of the toll-access Allelopathy Journal. About a week before the review was due back to the journal, the publisher sent this routine reminder notice to Dr. Narwal:

15-Dec-2013

Dear Dr. S.S. Narwal:

Recently, you kindly agreed to review the above manuscript, entitled “[redacted].” The manuscript is located in your Reviewer Centre at [redacted].

This e-mail is simply a reminder that your review is due in one week. The authors are naturally anxious about the progress on their paper and I would appreciate your help in expediting the review process. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance.

Sincerely,

Mark S. Goettel
Editor-in-Chief
Biocontrol Science and Technology

Now, here is the response to the above email that came from Dr. Narwal’s email account:

From: narwal@allelopathyjournal.org [mailto:narwal@allelopathyjournal.org]
Sent: December-15-13 4:47 AM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Re: Reminder: Manuscript CBST-2013- – Biocontrol Science & Technology

Dear Dr. Mark,

I am too busy to spare time for PEER REVIEW of Mss, however, I can Review if i am paid for this service. If you agree to pay, please tell me amount to be paid per Review?

This unsigned response, apparently from Dr. Narwal himself, generated this strong reaction from the editor of Biocontrol Science and Technology, Mark Goettel:

From: Mark Goettel BST
Sent: Wednesday, 18 December 2013 8:22 AM
To: narwal@allelopathyjournal.org
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: RE: Reminder: Manuscript CBST-2013- – Biocontrol Science & Technology

Dear Dr. Narwal,

Wow, that is a surprising request especially from the Chief Editor of an International Journal!!  May I ask how much you pay the peer reviewers who provide reviews for your Journal, “Allelopathy Journal”?

You were invited to review this manuscript on 14 November and accepted on 1 December. Now it is acceptable for you to decline because all of a sudden you find yourself too busy, but ask for momentary compensation? Shame on you!

I am copying members of your Editorial Board as well as Editors of other journals to inform them of what I feel is really unethical behaviour for an Editor of an international, peer reviewed journal!  I am sure they would like to know what type of journal editor they are associated with!

By the way, I also find it very strange that the only contact information provided for the “International Allelopathy Foundation”, the publisher of this journal to be your own!  Does not the foundation have a Board of Directors who should be informed of your unethical behaviour?

Sincerely,

Mark Goettel
Editor-in-Chief
Biocontrol Science & Technology

This letter was copied to all members of the journal’s editorial board, prompting this response from one of them, “I resigned from the Editorial Board of ‘Allelopathy Journal’ in 2009 in utter disgust at the conduct of its affairs.”

Allelopathy Journal is not an open-access journal, but it is questionable. Its masthead (see image above) claims an impact factor of 0.846, but my library’s edition of Journal Citation Reports shows 0.685.

The correct data.

Also, every time I visited the Allelopathy Journal website, it always said “Online Members: 107.” As Mark Goettel hinted at in his letter above, it appears the journal is really a one-man operation, despite its claiming to be published by the so-called International Allelopathy Foundation.

I recommend against submitting papers to Allelopathy Journal and against asking Dr. Narwal to review any manuscripts.

Proceed with caution here

InnoVision Health Media, Inc. is an Eagan, Minnesota-based publisher of six online medical journals. The journals are supported by advertising and subscription fees, but they do have some open-access content. The journals appear to target health professionals and health care consumers.

Two of this publisher’s journals — Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine and Advances in Mind-Body Medicine have as their editor in chief Andrew W. Campbell, MD.

According to the biography of Dr. Campbell that appears on the publisher’s website,

“Dr Campbell serves as medical director of a clinical practice in the Houston, Texas, area where he specializes in clinical immunotoxicology, the study of how toxins affect the human body and its immune system. His professional activities include serving as the medical director for the Medical Center for Immune and Toxic Disorders and as a treating physician to patients from all over the world.”

However, we learned some unfortunate information that appears to relate to the same Dr. Andrew Campbell. According to the Texas Medical Board, Dr. Campbell no longer has a license to practice medicine in that state. The Board’s website states,

Campbell, Andrew William, M.D., Lic. No. G7790, Houston
On November 4, 2011, the Board entered a Voluntary Surrender Order regarding Andrew William Campbell, M.D., requiring Dr. Campbell to immediately cease practice in Texas. The surrender resolves any complaints before the Board including Dr. Campbell’s June 2011 Final Order (SOAH Case No. 503-04-5717). Dr. Campbell stated that he is unable to comply with certain provisions of the Final Order due to financial and health reasons.

It appears that Dr. Campbell is now practicing medicine in Florida at a clinic called Clínica del Barrio.

I’m told that there are many editorial problems with the journals published by InnoVision, including late issues, poor editing practices including transposition of tables and figures, and old content re-branded later as “new.”

The editorial boards are questionable too. For example, I’m told that Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., listed on the editorial board for Advances in Mind-Body Medicine, died in early 2012. Most of the Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine editorial board resigned when the former editorial team left in 2010, but their names remain on the masthead and many people have long since left their affiliations listed for the editorial board (e.g., Lori Knutson left Allina in 2011, Joel Edman is no longer at Thomas Jefferson, Lising Lao is now in Hong Kong and left the University of Maryland in 2011, etc.).

In my opinion, researchers thinking of submitting their work to any of InnoVision’s journals ought to consider finding a better outlet. Similarly, doctors and other readers would do well to find higher-quality outlets than these six journals.

Islamic Science Citation Index

Note: This is a guest post by a professor from an Iranian University.

Before the Islamic Revolution in Iran, some Iranian universities were almost as good as some outstanding universities (e.g., MIT, UCLA, etc.). When the Islamists overtook power in 1979, almost all of the fine Iranian university professors fled Iran for fear of their lives. The universities were closed for a couple of years. Before they re-opened, a team of hard-liner Islamists headed by Professor Abdolkarim Soroosh formed a ‘refinery’ group which came to be known as the “Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution” whose job was to make sure no secular professors would remain employed in Iranian universities. Non-academic criteria (such as wearing the Islamic Chador, having a beard, saying prayers, participating in pro-regime political shows, etc.) were adopted as the criteria for employment, and the job vacancies were filled with so-called virtuous instructors/professors some of whom had fake diplomas (e.g., Ali Kordan).

A few years later, a new cancerous university with hundreds of branches even in far-off villages of Iran came into existence which was called Islamic Azad University; it may be amusing for non-Iranians to know that there is joke among Iranians which says, ‘If someone asks you to say a phrase which includes three BIG lies, just answer “Islamic Azad University”.’ The standards of academic quality were compromised even more, and Iranian universities began to race down the list of top universities of the world. Plagiarism, self plagiarism, fake books and papers, pseudo science, and the like began to grow like a cancerous tumor. All of a sudden, the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology as well as the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education noticed that Iranian university Professors were no longer able to publish in scholarly journals—they were not university material any more.

The people in charge in the two ministries agreed to do a survey whose purpose was to find the possible causes of this undesirable situation; a pathology/etiology study was performed, but the final report was quite amusing. The people in charge had concluded that universal prestige academic journals were sinisterly not willing to publish works from Iran simply because such journals belonged to Zionists who had decided to practice academic apartheid against Iranians—a justification which is very much in line with what Freud called projection. Everything in this country is explained that simply. There is always a western demon behind whatever goes wrong in this country. The whole world has just one thing to do; to plot against us.

Now that the cause was known, a remedy was in order. This gave birth to the Islamic World Science Citation Index (known as ISC). The ISC was launched as a rival to ISI, JCR, ERIC, etc. Now that we have our own ISC, assistant professors publish in predatory journals and get promoted to the rank of associate professor in no time; by the same token, associate professors become full professors. University rankings, too, have been drastically affected. After all, ISC indexes many predatory journals. Just see the list for yourselves:  http://mjl.isc.gov.ir/Searchresult.aspx?Cond=0. The very fact that ISC has recently added an ‘Excluded Journals from ISC’ link (http://mjl.isc.gov.ir/ExcludedJournals.aspx) on its website testifies to the fact that ISC had indexed them on shaky grounds in the first place; now you can guess the rest of the story. The rest for me now is silence.