[GOAL] Re: Still on the scientific open access journals in Brazil - response to Heather Morrison

Tue Mar 31 15:11:50 BST 2015

Dear Mrs. Heather Morrison,

In attention to your comments and issues, and regarding the examples given
by Mr. Dana Roth, I make the following considerations.

> Some questions and comments for Mauricio Tuffani. In brief, I question
whether
> Brazilian authors are actually publishing in the journals included in
Beall's list,

The inclusion of journals in Qualis is based in the Brazilian papers
published during the period corresponding to the quality assessment of all
national graduate programs. In other words, all journals included in Mr.
Beall's list and also in this database have been used by Brazilian authors.

> note that whether editing and peer review are slow or fast depend on
factors
> such as speed of communication and do not necessarily reflect quality,

I am not a researcher, as said Mr Amaro, but I dare say that your comment
could not be valid even hypothetically. Just as today we have more speed in
communication, as you say, we also have a greater and growing availability
of information. And this has brought, at least for the good reviewers, not
only more sources to be consulted to review a paper, but also the
intellectual and moral obligation to not ignore them. In addition, it has
brought the need for more time to assessment, including on the relevance of
the proposed studies for publication.

In other words, far from shortening the good review work, the Internet has
increased the scope of this activity, bringing more work and a much greater
responsibility. Not only for auditors, but also for editors. A
editor-in-chief should not be a mere agent of tasks, but the first filter
of academic publication, which should be a selective work and not mere
record. Unlike the "open-hearted" predatory publishers.

> and I wonder whether a quadrupling of Brazilian authors' articles in Web
of Science
> really reflects productivity, or increased acceptance of Brazilian
authors and/or
> journals in Web of Science.

In fact, this "increased productivity" deserves quotation marks, and I
thought I had showed the impression that this is a questionable increase.
That numbers increased for several reasons. More journals were accepted by
Web of Science, most researchers have been formed in Brazil, and many
research institutions began to demand for more publications. It is also
known that many studies have been divided to provide more papers. And for
that there are many predatory publishers with more flexible relevance
criteria to accept papers. The same relevance I commented above
.

Best regards,

****************************Maurício TuffaniJournalist, science writerSão
Paulo, SP, BrazilMobile: +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>*
*****************************.

2015-03-30 16:36 GMT-03:00 Dana Roth <dzrlib at library.caltech.edu>:

> 1.  re:  "whether editing and peer review are slow or fast depend on
> factors such as speed of communication and do not necessarily reflect
> quality" ... this may be valid in a theory, but as a general rule, I would
> suggest that speed is more likely a result of a cursory review than of any
> increase in 'speed of communication'.
>
> 2. re: "reviewers and editors of quality scholarly journals do not take
> weeks or months to review, accept or reject articles." ... this statement,
> in regards STM publishing is patently untrue.  An honest peer review may
> result in requests for a variety of additions/changes to the original
> manuscript.
>
> In regards the time it takes between submission and publication. Here is
> some data on articles from the first 2015 issue of J. Am. Chem. Soc.
>
> Communications:
>
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 22, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 08, 2014
> Received: August 17, 2014
> ------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 31, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 25, 2014
> Received: August 17, 2014
> --------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 23, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 17, 2014
> Received: August 21, 2014
> ----------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 29, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: November 25, 2014
> Received: September 09, 2014
> ------------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 22, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: November 21, 2014
> Received: September 11, 2014
> ---------------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
>  Article ASAP: December 26, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 18, 2014
> Received: September 30, 2014
> --------------------------------------------------
> Articles:
>
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 22, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 05, 2014
> Received: July 11, 2014
> ----------------------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: December 26, 2014
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 10, 2014
> Received: July 23, 2014
> -----------------------------------------
> Published In Issue: January 14, 2015
> Article ASAP: January 02, 2015
> Just Accepted Manuscript: December 19, 2014
> Received: July 25, 2014
> -----------------------------------------
>
> It is also generally recognized that mathematics articles are extremely
> slow to be reviewed.
>
> In regards, Web of Science, one of their major problems is the absence of
> ASAP articles, in contrast to PubMed and SciFinder.  Since Web of Science
> waits for the formal publication of complete journal issues, this causes an
> additional delay in possible retrieval from their database, making PubMed
> or SciFinder the choice for very recently published articles.
>
> Dana L. Roth
> Millikan Library / 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
> ________________________________________
> From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [goal-bounces at eprints.org] on behalf of
> Heather Morrison [Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca]
> Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 7:11 AM
> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
> Subject: [GOAL] Re: Still on the scientific open access journals in Brazil
> - response to Mister Jeffrey Beall
>
> Some questions and comments for Mauricio Tuffani. In brief, I question
> whether Brazilian authors are actually publishing in the journals included
> in Beall's list, note that whether editing and peer review are slow or fast
> depend on factors such as speed of communication and do not necessarily
> reflect quality, and I wonder whether a quadrupling of Brazilian authors'
> articles in Web of Science really reflects productivity, or increased
> acceptance of Brazilian authors and/or journals in Web of Science.
>
> Details
>
> Whether the inclusion of journals on Beall's list of "Potential, possible,
> or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers" in Qualis means
> that Brazilian authors are actually publishing in these journals is a
> hypothesis that needs to be tested. I would predict that few (possibly even
> no) articles by Brazilian authors would be found in these journals. One
> reason for my hypothesis is that many such journals have low publication
> rates. For example, Tuffani points to the OMICS Journal of Clinical &
> Experimental Cardiology: http://rs.gs/wcS. This journal appears to
> publish monthly, with a total of about 3 - 4 research articles per issue
> and 1 -2 case reports. Quickly glancing at a few issues, I do not see any
> evidence suggesting this is a venue used by Brazilian authors. Also, the
> policy for this journals is that articles are only accepted in English;
> would this not discourage submissions from researchers writing in
> Portuguese? To determine whether inclusion of these journals in Qualis
> reflects Brazilian publishing, it would be a good idea to take at least a
> sample of these journals and see whether articles from Brazilian authors
> can be found in them.
>
> Tuffani wrote:
>
> "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..."
>
> Comment: reviewers and editors of quality scholarly journals do not take
> weeks or months to review, accept or reject articles. A good reviewer might
> spend a half day to a day on a review. The lengthy time of traditional
> journals for this work reflects the development of such journals in a
> system where both production and dissemination relied on print. Authors
> used to have to send (by mail) several print copies of articles to editors
> for review. The editor would then have to mail the articles to reviewers,
> who would then read, review, and return the articles to the editors also by
> mail. Every step of the review process - questions from reviewers to
> editors to authors - would require a repeat of this multi-step process,
> with delays based on print / mail at every step. Automated journal
> management software using the internet for communications eliminates these
> delays in communications. An editor can send a request for review to a
> potential reviewer asking them to indicate their willingness and
> availability to review within days. If the reviewer is not available, the
> editor can move on to find someone else. Traditional journals, even those
> still publishing in print, that have not speeded up their editing and
> review process are not taking advantage of the technology available today.
>
> Question: Tuffani wrote that "the number of published articles nearly
> quadrupled since 2000". The source cited is Web of Science. Has the number
> of articles written and/or published actually quadrupled since 2000, or
> does some or all of this difference reflect an increase in coverage of
> Brazilian authors in Web of Science? The former suggests enhanced
> productivity (which could be due to any of a number of factors; it is
> highly unlikely that the difference reflects publishing in journals
> included on Beall's list), while the latter suggests increased
> international visibility of Brazilian authors (a good thing for Brazilian
> scholarship).
>
> best,
>
> --
> Dr. Heather Morrison
> Assistant Professor
> École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
> Cross-appointed to the Department of Communication
> University of Ottawa
> http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
> Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
>
>
>
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