[GOAL] Predatory Publishing

Wed Jul 25 15:44:16 BST 2018

My five cent here. At 1science, we used the Beall’s list as a source of inspiration to built 1journal which is a white list of academic/scientific journal we use in building 1findr - we currently have a tad more than 87,000 journals in there, and about 80,000 journals of which have articles indexed in 1 journal.

While using the Beall’s list, we truly saw horror stories such as journals which claimed articles published in other journals. Most of the journals and publishers had very little activity though. Then, at the other end of the spectrum we had large, growing publishers. MDPI and Frontiers appeared on the list at one point or another. We found it a very difficult proposition to completely omit all the journals for publishers such as these. Some journals/publishers obviously had annoying behaviour such as spamming authors. Though that’s naughty, it isn’t predatory. At 1science, we aim to be exhaustive so if a company is naughty in marketing but clean in controlling articles’ quality, we’re willing to include it in 1findr and let the “market” punish them if it deems deplorable the spamming and other types of behaviour not linked with quality control and publisher good scholarly work.

Having produced bibliometric analyses with Scopus and WoS for years and having built 1findr, I see absolutely no reason to panic, though I see some real cause for concern. We need research funding bodies to fund a serious study of the issue of malpractices in publishing and it has to be neutral to business models - malpractices can be found at traditional subscription journals and at open access journals, though the APC model certainly contributed to having unscrupulous individuals exploit the obvious weak point of this model. Without a serious study, we’ll continue to be distracted by sensational journalism at a time when robust data is needed.

Eric Archambault
1science.com<http://1science.com>
Science-Metrix.com<http://Science-Metrix.com>
+1-514-495-6505 x111

On Jul 25, 2018, at 16:14, Reckling, Falk <Falk.Reckling at fwf.ac.at<mailto:Falk.Reckling at fwf.ac.at>> wrote:

Hi Richard,

1) A number of actions are mentioned in the response, the most important one is to support DOAJ, to publish publication costs via Open APC and make publishing contracts openly in the future.

2) There is no reliable empirical evidence that the phenomenon of predatory publishing has increased massively over time.

3) There is still a problem of definition: Currently all sorts of things are subsumed under predatory publishing. This ranges from naive, under-funded, unprofessional, joke to profit-seeking and fake. That was one reason why Beall's black list was useless, not to mention Crusaderism and missing checks and balances.

In short, we should observe and scientifically analyse the phenomenon, but also not overestimate and panic.

Best

Falk

Von: goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org> <goal-bounces at eprints.org<mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org>> Im Auftrag von Richard Poynder
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. Juli 2018 15:22
An: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal at eprints.org<mailto:goal at eprints.org>>
Betreff: Re: [GOAL] Predatory Publishing

Thanks for posting this Falk. I have yet to see concerted action taken anywhere to support researchers who become victims of predatory publishers.

I also do not think I see any recognition of their plight, or details of what is being planned to help them, in your document. Perhaps I missed it.

Anyway, I have blogged about the topic here:

https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/07/falling-prey-to-predatory-oa-publisher.html

Richard Poynder

On Wed, 25 Jul 2018, 13:51 Reckling, Falk, <Falk.Reckling at fwf.ac.at<mailto:Falk.Reckling at fwf.ac.at>> wrote:
The Austrian Science Board and the FWF Respond to the Recent Media Reports on the Questionable Practices of Several Scholarly Publishers
https://www.fwf.ac.at/en/news-and-media-relations/news/detail/nid/20180724-2314/

___________________________________
Falk Reckling, PhD
Head of Department
Strategy - Policy, Evaluation, Analysis

FWF Austrian Science Fund
1090 Vienna, Sensengasse 1, Austria
T: +43 1 505 67 40 8861
M: +43 664 530 73 68
falk.reckling at fwf.ac.at<mailto:falk.reckling at fwf.ac.at>
CV via ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1326-1766

BE OPEN - Science & Society Festival
50 years of top research funded by FWF
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