[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber

[Richard Poynder]

Hi Ross,

 

Absolutely, I see no problem at all with a publisher being based in the
developing world and, as you point out, Hindawi is a good example of a
respected publisher based in a developing country. 

 

But that does not mean that one should avoid any criticism of publishers
because they are based in a certain geographical location.  

 

What I am saying is that if you put together the fact that the study
included quite a few publishers on Jeffrey Beall's list with the fact that
these publishers seem invariably to be based in the developing world (even
though some claim to be based in the US) then you might wonder whether the
average APC figure arrived at in the study could have been subject to some
bias. 

 

My point is less about the developing world than it is about predatory
publishers, and whether they ought to be included in a study aimed at
establishing the average cost of publishing in an OA journal.  

 

I do understand that Beall's list is a controversial one, but I have looked
at a number of these publishers myself and I have reached my own
conclusions.

 

Richard

 

 

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Ross Mounce
Sent: 13 December 2012 09:59
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber

 

On 13 December 2012 09:32, Richard Poynder <ricky at richardpoynder.co.uk
<mailto:ricky at richardpoynder.co.uk> > wrote:

I believe this latter study included a number of publishers based in the
developing world



Hi Richard,

 

 

I hope you see nothing wrong in a number of publishers being based in the
'developing world' ?

Hindawi are perhaps one such publisher, if one classes Egypt as a
'developing world' country. You've even written yourself that there tends to
be perhaps an unjust bias against 'developing world' publishers
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-oa-interviews-ahmed-hindawi-founde
r.html  

 

Can you please make clear what you mean by what you said? 

I don't want to encourage assessments of quality purely based upon
geographic location.

 

Best,

 

Ross 




 

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