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

[Richard Poynder]

"Another way would be for DOAJ to start excluding journals but that could
become very complicated and resource demanding."

This is no doubt true, but isn’t it time that some organisation took
responsibility for doing this difficult work? As it is, it is being left to
a lone individual with, I must assume, little in the way of resources. And
instead of trying to help Jeffrey Beall, many in the OA movement seem more
inclined to criticise him.

All in all, it is hard not to conclude with the sentiments expressed by
Beall on this list last week:

"The entire scholarly publishing system is in danger of eroding due to the
increasing influence of predatory publishing."
(http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-December/001353.html). 

Richard Poynder

-----Original Message-----
From: Bo-Christer Björk [mailto:bo-christer.bjork at hanken.fi] 
Sent: 13 December 2012 12:17
To: Richard Poynder
Cc: bjork at hanken.fi; 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber

We did a scientific empirical study of APCs of journals listed in DOAJ as
Open Access peer reviewed journals. We did not attempt to out screen
journals not fulfilling certain quality norms. If somebody wishes to
replicate the study and exclude certain publishers, that's obviously doable.
Another way would be for DOAJ to start excluding journals but that could
become very complicated and resource demanding.

Best Bo-Christer


On 12/13/12 1:36 PM, Richard Poynder wrote:
> Point taken, but was there a particular reason for including the "Beall"
> journals in your study? What purpose did it serve?
>
> The criticism of some of these journals, by the way, goes some way 
> beyond the fact that they are guilty of spamming researchers.
>
> Richard Poynder
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bjork at hanken.fi [mailto:bjork at hanken.fi]
> Sent: 13 December 2012 11:24
> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci); Richard Poynder
> Cc: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
> Subject: Re: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
>
> In our study with David Solomon we weighted the APCs of different 
> journals with the number of articles they had published to arrive at 
> the average APC of around 900 USD. For instance the impact of PloS One 
> alone is bigger than all the 200+ journals of Bentham together. So 
> although we didn't calculate any share for "Beall" journals their 
> overall impact is not that big. More disturbing is the bad press they
create by spamming.
>
> Bo-Christer
>
>
>
> Quoting Richard Poynder <ricky at richardpoynder.co.uk>:
>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>