Does Everyone in India Want to be a Scholarly Publisher?

Bad management.

The number of scholarly open-access publishers and standalone journals based in India is skyrocketing. Everyone there — it seems — wants to get in on the open-access gold rush. Here I describe a typical Indian open-access publisher, the so-called Jabalpur Management Association.

I don’t think the Jabalpur Management Association is really an authentic “association.” Instead, I think it’s really just a one-man operation, the man being Mr. Anil Mehra, who is running the operation out of his house or a small storefront. Jabalpur is a city in India’s Madhya Pradesh state, located in the center of the country.

Colorful rubbish.

One of the things that distinguishes this publisher is the colorful design of its journal covers. The design makes the covers stand out — much like children’s books. Some include pictures lifted from the internet.

The “association’s” twenty journals are all broad in scope and cover academic fields already saturated with open-access journals, so they’re just noise. In fact, they have few published articles, as researchers have increasingly learned to avoid phony open-access journals.

More rubbish in a colorful package.

The Jabalpur Management Association offers two degrees: Diploma in Caterinng Management [sic, they mean “catering”] and a Diploma in Digital Marketing. So, the same guy publishing Global Journal of Surgery is also teaching classes on catering.

Some of the journal covers display ISBNs instead of ISSNs, additional evidence of non-standard or inept practices.

Everybody in India wants to be a scholarly publisher, it seems. India’s population is 1.2 billion, so soon there will be 1.2 billion scholarly publishers in India.

While we want to maintain freedom of the press, there is an increasing need to credential scholarly publishers. Science and other research is too important to humans to allow its publication by inexperienced, open-access profiteers.

Appendix: List of Jabalpur Management Association journals as of 2016-08-03

1. Global Journal of Basic and Applied Chemical Sciences (GJBACS)
2. Global Journal of Basic and Applied Medical Sciences (GJBAMS)
3. Global Journal of Basic and Applied Medical Sciences (GBAMS)
4. Global Journal of Bio-Protocols (GJBP)
5. Global Journal of Biotechnology
6. Global Journal of Engineering, Science and Social Science Studies (GJESS)
7. Global Journal of Fundamental and Applied Life Sciences (GJFALS)
8. Global Journal of Innovative Research and Review (GJRR)
9. Global Journal of Law (GJL)
10. Global Journal of Library Sciences (GJLS)
11. Global Journal of Medical Case Reports (GJMCR)
12. Global Journal of Microbiology (GJM)
13. Global Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (GJMS)
14. Global Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (GJPHS)
15. Global Journal of Physics and Mathematical Sciences (GJPMS)
16. Global Journal of Plant Sciences (GJPS)
17. Global Journal of Surgery (GJS)
18. Global Journal of Zoology (GJZ)
19. International Journal of Animal, Veterinary, Fishery, and Allied Sciences (IJAVFAS)
20. South Asia Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (SAJMS)