[GOAL] Re: Still on the scientific open access journals in Brazil - response to Mister Jeffrey Beall

Sat Mar 28 15:37:51 GMT 2015

Dear GOAL members,

Let me please introduce myself. I am the journalist Mauricio Tuffani
<http://mauriciotuffani.blogfolha.uol.com.br/perfil/>, quoted by Mr.
Jeffrey Beall and Mrs. Bianca Amaro. I am a science writer and collaborator
of "Folha de S. Paulo" <http://www.folha.com.br>, the largest Brazilian
daily newspaper. I have a blog <http://folha.com/mauriciotuffani> hosted by
this newspaper.

It is not for me to say on behalf of Mr. Beall, but I must clarify
misconceptions related to my posts and articles.

I am not a researcher, as correctly said Mrs. Amaro and she is not the
first person to highlight this fact. The same thing was said by the board
of directors of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which in
1989 I accused of defrauding the Amazon deforestation estimates. In the
following year, the institute recognized its "small error" of about 50% and
fired the coordinator of that work.

And so it has been all these years.

I would like to clarify that I have admiration for the O
pen 
A
ccess
. However,
I am
 a

journalist,
and 
it is my duty to point out distortions that are of public interest.

And there have been many distortions in the Brazilian academic production
in recent years. While the number of published articles nearly
quadru
pled since 200
<http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2014/10/1531461-producao-cientifica-no-brasil-fica-menos-concentrada-em-sao-paulo.shtml>
0
<http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2014/10/1531461-producao-cientifica-no-brasil-fica-menos-concentrada-em-sao-paulo.shtml>

, their relative impact to the world stagnated in the same period
<http://mauriciotuffani.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2014/10/15/a-pesquisa-no-brasil-e-em-sp-parte-3/>
.

Here in Brazil is very common to opt for quantitative growth believing that
later will be possible to increase the quality. Because of this frequent
illusion the country has mountains of waste in its economy, education,
culture and other fields such as science.

In Brazilian science and graduate education this quantitative growth
without attention to quality involves several activities. Academic
publishing is one of them, and within there is Open Access.

The common point of all my posts indicated by Mr. Beall is the fact that
poor quality journals have been accepted in the
Qualis <http://qualis.capes.gov.br>
database, of CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education
Personnel), of the Ministry of Education.

Unlike what said Mrs. Bianca Amaro, I do not criticize "the use of this
database for evaluation of Brazilian science in graduate programs." I just
reported that the Q
ualis
database accepts
predatory journals
<http://mauriciotuffani.blogfolha.uol.com.br/brazilian-graduate-programs-accept-201-predatory-journals/>
.

And I have reported this in all my posts highlighting clarifications as
follows:

*"Both in the online open access, with fees paid by authors, as in the
traditional model maintained by annual subscriptions or fees per article
download from the Internet, the reputable journals take months or even over
a year to review and accept articles, or rejected Them. Accused of
prioritizing minimizing costs and maximizing profits, the "predatory
publishers" not only reduce to a few weeks the acceptance of articles, but
are less selective and rigorous in this process."*

Mr. Jeffrey Beall's message header "Open Access in Brazil" was in fact too
generic, but made no mistake. I have often received information that good
Brazilian OA journals —which really want to build the golden road quoted by
Mrs. Amaro— are losing the preference of researchers to predatory journals.

I do not have metrics to show this preference for predatory journals, but I
could show that more than 200 of them were accepted by Q
ualis
, bringing consequences that come to be
ridiculous
<http://mauriciotuffani.blogfolha.uol.com.br/fake-professor-edits-journal-selected-by-capes/>
or 
anecdotal
<http://mauriciotuffani.blogfolha.uol.com.br/fasten-your-seat-belts-the-editor-is-gone/>
.

Perhaps M
r
s. Amaro does not know this situation —and I do not know if she ought to
know it— but those who should know it act like they did not know: CAPES, CNP
q
(National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), state
funding agencies and universities.

I am very glad that this issue has been brought to this discussion group.
Sometimes problems of Brazilian science have been resolved
"
with a little help 
from
"
its
friends
 outside Brazil. It happened, for example, with the fraudulent estimate of
Amazon deforestation to which I referred at the beginning of this message.

If the growing garbage from predatory journals in Brazil continue to be
ignored, it will become much larger than the bucolic "golden road in the
country" glorified by Mrs. Amaro.

With my due respect for her opinion, I think her overreaction to the
generic header of Mr. Beall's message is actually a disregard of a serious
threat to the Open Access in Brazil. This threat is the inclusion of
predatory journals in Q
ualis
supported by the code of silence around this issue in the Brazilian
academia.

*(I know that I stretched too much what I had to say, but I can not
resist sharing the following. I received right now a message sent by a full
professor. He criticizes me for the inclusion of a journal on my list of
"predatory Qualis". And this journal says on its website: "21 day rapid
review process with international peer-review standards"
<http://omicsonline.org/submitmanuscript-clinical-experimental-cardiology-open-access.php>.)*

Thank you for your attention.

***************************
*Maurício Tuffani*
*J**ournalist, science writer*
*São Paulo, SP, Brazil*
*Mobile: +55 11 99164-8443 <%2B55%2011%2099164-8443>*
*Phone: +55 11 2366-9949 <%2B55%2011%202366-9949>*
*http://folha.com/mauriciotuffani <http://folha.com/mauriciotuffani>*
*mauricio at tuffani.net <mauricio at tuffani.net>*
***************************
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