[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt

Tue Apr 21 00:53:05 BST 2015

You might want to check further re: Hindawi … 

I noticed that some of their journals seem to have an enormous increase in the number of published articles … seemingly far above what could be reasonably be peer reviewed?

This data is from journals indexed by Web of Science or PubMed … and I haven’t had time to dig further.

Some of the Hindawi journals are publishing ~10 papers a day. That could be over two million dollars a year income (@$600/article) for a single journal (e.g. Scientific World Journal).

Please note the spike in publications when Hindawi changed some journal titles or picked up a ‘new’ title:

===========================================

Biomed Research International – 2013+

2013 (2,119) 

2014 (3,698)

Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology – 2003-2012

2003 (34)                                 2006 (64)                                 2009 (166)                               2011 (426)

2004 (52)                                 2007 (45)                                 2010 (430)                               2012 (490)

2005 (45)                                 2008 (48)                                   

=============================================

Scientific World Journal – 2012+

2012 (1,160)                            2013 (1,533)                            2014 (3,073)

This from its Wikipedia entry:
The Scientific World Journal (formerly, The ScientificWorldJournal) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering fields in the life sciences ranging from biomedicine to environmental sciences. It was established in 2001 and is (since 2013) published by Hindawi Publishing Corporation. The journal will not be listed in the 2015 Journal Citation Reports because of "anomalous citation patterns".

PubMed still lists the journal under its original title:  ScientificWorldJournal
2014    3589
2013    1521
2012    1154
2011    238
2010    229
2009    160
2008    149
2007    247
2006    263
2005    108
2004    166
2003    117
2002    205
2001    234
2000    2

=======================================

There are also problems with some of their long held titles:

Mathematical Problems in Engineering

1995 (20)                                 2001 (33)                                 2006 (87)                                2011 (270)
1996 (31)                                 2002 (38)                                 2007 (59)                                2012 (725)
1997 (9)                                  2003 (12)                                 2008 (97)                                2013 (1,758)
1998 (31)                                 2004 (26)                                 2009 (197)                               2014 (2,098)
1999 (22)                                 2005 (48)                                 2010 (288)
2000 (31)                              

Dana L. Roth
Caltech 1-32
1200 E. California Blvd. 
Pasadena, CA 91125
626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540
dzrlib at library.caltech.edu
http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm 

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Bo-Christer Björk
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2015 9:42 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci); David Solomon
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt

Hi all,

The 1500 USD charged by Hindawi for the journal in question is by global standards fairly reasonable, given the impact factor level of the journal. The problem is that uniform APCs for all countries is probably unsustainable in the long run. For this reason many gold OA journals give Waivers for authors from developing countries. In this particular case authors from around 60 countries, mainly from Africa and Asia and curiously also Ukraine can get waivers. Egypt alas is not on the relevant World Bank list.

The leading publishers do not charge the same amounts for big deal subscription licenses in different countries, but take into account the potential customers ability to pay (its a bit like airline ticketing). 
Likewise I would hope that if we convert to a dominating APC funded gold OA solution, then OA publishers will develop more tieried APC schemes than the current binominal full APC- waiver one. There are already some examples of policies with at least three levels.

Bo-Christer Björk

On 4/11/15 5:58 PM, Heather Morrison wrote:
> David, Jan & Peter: thank you for your comments. I agree with some of what you say, would like to point to where we said basically the same things in the original post. and have some comments to add:
>
> Agreed - Hindawi has a deserved reputation as a leader in scholarly publishing, and in particular for commitment to quality. I also acknowledge that Egyptian researchers can benefit by reading the OA works of others. Following are words to this effect from the original blogpost:
>
> Details, first paragraph: "Hindawi is an open access commercial publishing success story and an Egyptian business success story. Hindawi Publishing Corporation was founded by Ahmed Hindawi who, in an interview with Richard Poynder conducted in September 2012, confirmed a revenue of millions of dollars from APCs alone – a $3.3 net profit on $12 million in revenue, a 28% profit rate (Poynder, 2012). Hindawi is highly respected in open access publishing circles, and was an early leader in establishing the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA), an organization that takes quality in publishing seriously". Towards the end: "Egyptian researchers can read open access works of others".
> http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/10/who-is-served-by-for-
> profit-gold-open-access-publishing-a-case-study-of-hindawi-and-egypt/
>
> David Prosser said: "I know of no country where APCs are mainly paid from academic salaries.  In the same way that centrifuges, reagents, etc., etc. tend not to be paid for from salaries.  They are mainly paid from research grants and so the comparison to salaries strikes me as meaningless".
>
> Comment: one way to think of this is that there are larger pools of funds from which both academic salaries and monies for other expenses (including APCs, subscription payments, reagents) are drawn. I argue that providing funds for research per se is a necessary precondition to dissemination of research results. I further argue that research funders working in the developing world will be more effective if they prioritize funding for academic salaries, student support,  and other direct supports for actually doing the research, rather than paying APCs. A subsidy of two APCs for Hindawi's Disease Markers - or a single APC of $3,000 charged by some other publishers - would pay a year's salary for a lecturer position in Egypt.
>
> Of course I am Canadian, have never been to Egypt, and do not speak Arabic. I am merely commenting on the impact of a model that I am viewing from a distance. To understand what is best for Egypt and her researchers requires in-depth knowledge of the country, consultation with and ideally leadership by Egyptian researchers themselves.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison
>
>
>
>
>
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