[GOAL] Need for a new beginning

[Éric Archambault]

Dear list members:
What started as a one-man, useful list that identified “Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers”, which Jeffrey himself further qualifies as a “list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers”, has now overshot its usefulness. We need a new beginning.
If these publishers are questionable, let’s find a mechanism to question them, and let’s, at the very least, document their answers. Currently, this list of editors/journals, deemed questionable by one man alone, is increasingly being found guilty of “predatory” practices by the jury. Even Björk, someone who I really respect for his immeasurable services to the OA movement, has fallen prey (sorry for the pun) to a lack of critical perspective. So, now we supposedly have 8,000 journals that are no longer questionable and that have been condemned, found guilty of being predatory, without any sort of due process (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/230):
Methods
After an initial scan of all predatory publishers and journals included in the so-called Beall’s list, a sample of 613 journals was constructed using a stratified sampling method from the total of over 11,000 journals identified. Information about the subject field, country of publisher, article processing charge and article volumes published between 2010 and 2014 were manually collected from the journal websites. For a subset of journals, individual articles were sampled in order to study the country affiliation of authors and the publication delays.
Results
Over the studied period, predatory journals have rapidly increased their publication volumes from 53,000 in 2010 to an estimated 420,000 articles in 2014, published by around 8,000 active journals.
In an open society, especially one that accepts and promotes scholarly and scientific values and methods, the right to discuss is absolutely essential.
I’d like to invite readers of this list to read MDPI’s answer to the fact that it was placed on a list of questionable journals by Jeffrey:
http://www.mdpi.com/about/announcements/534
Please also read Richard Poynder’s blog:
http://poynder.blogspot.ca/2015/04/the-open-access-interviews-publisher.html
Alongside 1science Inc, which is developing a series of tools to increase OA use, uptake and diffusion, we are about to create the 1science Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal will be to support OA initiatives and critical thinking.  Following the thread sent a month ago on this list by Richard Poynder, I reached out to the Canadian Research Councils with the idea of them partnering with the 1science Foundation to create a research fund to investigate this issue. As a starting point, here are some of the questions I feel need funding now so that they can be addressed by the scholarly community:
 “What criteria could be used to determine the entry and exit of journals on a list of journals for which research funding bodies would usually advise against researchers paying article processing charges?”
“How could a system that would monitor gold OA journals be established and operate in a self-sustainable manner?”
This is not enough, and with hindsight, perhaps my first question lacks reflectivity and may be loaded. I don’t pretend that these are good questions. However, what I am certain about is that we need to question the lack of due process that may unduly affect the reputation of publishers, and we need to protect the public interest by making sure that publishers-- including traditional publishers who, should we remind people, also deviate from best practices from time to time--do not use public funds in a way that could be qualified as being abusive. I know that asking the question in this way will certainly lead to many questioning how can one determine if a subscription price or article processing charge is abusive. Maybe we cannot exclude this from being questioned. When we say that charging $500 for a paper with no peer review is questionable, others could argue that charging $3,000 when academics do the work for free is equally if not more questionable. I don’t necessarily think this is the way to go, even though this is an important social and public policy debate. I think what is at the heart of the problem that Jeffrey wanted to address with his list is the fact that some publishers and editors have deceptive practices. Most of this is centered on the peer review process – some gold publishers say they do it, but don’t do it adequately if at all, but there are also documented lapses by both subscription-based and transiting-to-OA publishers. The question should therefore not be restricted to gold OA, but also to subscription (paywall) publishing. Paying subscriptions to deceptive journals with public funds is not any better than using these funds for APC.
Here is what I would like members of this list to contribute:

1)      Questions to examine, review and fairly document deceptive practices by journal publishers. Questions to determine what are best practices by scholarly journals (both OA and non-OA journals).

2)      What form can such a system take. Should we maintain a negative list or should a positive list like that provided by the DOAJ suffice. If so, how could a positive list be extended to subscription-based journals (for there is also a need to determine whether green self-archived papers were published in deceptive subscription-based journals).

3)      If you have an idea of research funds/councils who would willing to contribute to an international fund to address this question, please send them here or privately to my email address (eric.archambault at science-metrix.com<mailto:eric.archambault at science-metrix.com>).
Thank you for your attention, and sorry for the length of this posting.
Éric
Eric Archambault, Ph.D.
President and CEO | Président-directeur général
Science-Metrix & 1science
1335, Mont-Royal E
Montréal, QC  H2J 1Y6
Canada

T. 1.514.495.6505
E-mail: eric.archambault at science-metrix.com<mailto:eric.archambault at science-metrix.com>
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