Naughty journal.

The International Journal of English Language, Literature & Humanities (IJELLH) is using a (likely pirated) Christmas-themed call for papers. It promises to publish research papers in four days.

A quick look at this journal’s website reveals that it is totally fake in almost every way possible. It sports a fake impact factor (SJIF Impact Factor of 2.317), and it claims to be an “ISO 9001:2008 certified non-profit organization.”

Bogus.

The journal also prominently claims “Norwegian Accreditation.” I don’t think the Norwegians really approve of this extremely low-quality journal.

The journal’s FAQ page gives insight into why there are so many bogus journals based in India. It seems that academic credit is awarded on a point system, and the standard for assigning points is very low:

 How many points in API will I get if my article is published in IJELLH ?

Ans:  You get 10 points for the paper published in ISSN affiliated journals.  But you can get 15 points if your article is published in IJELLH as it is an international, Refereed / Peer-reviewed, Indexed Journal according to UGC norms and guidelines.

I think that UGC here refers to India’s University Grants Commission. Does the Commission really publish such ridiculous norms and guidelines?

Get published in four days for one hundred dollars.

Authors can publish in this journal for as low as $100.

I am seeing an increasing number of predatory journals in the humanities. Also, I am seeing an increase in the number of questionable open-access journals on TESL. There are many TESL professors around the world, including many needing to publish to earn tenure and promotion.

Previously, predatory journals focused on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Now they seem to be increasingly focusing on the humanities and social sciences as well.

And now they are using Christmas-themed marketing to get more money from more researchers as well.

Is this a paper mill?

A recent article entitled “For Sale: ‘Your Name Here’ in a Prestigious Science Journal” published in Scientific American described paper mills, companies that — for a fee — arrange to write a paper for a customer and then get it published in a reputable journal. The customer is listed as one of the paper’s authors and gets academic credit for the publication, even though all he did was pay a fee to the company

I wonder if the company called Journal Publication might be a paper mill. Its flashy website has bold statements like “Get your research published in globally recognized journals” and “Superior consultancy provided to guarantee journal publication for your research.”

The site itself is not transparent. It provides almost no information about the company itself, such as where it is based. The domain name registration data lists Panama, but I doubt this is the firm’s location.

Mr. Phyllis D. Dow ?

The website has a professional flair to it, but closer scrutiny reveals several telling flaws, such as the testimonial above, which shows a man’s picture with a woman’s name.

Another testimonial purports to be from “Ellen A. Allen, Standford University.” I think the name is contrived, and the correct spelling of the university’s name is Stanford.

I  recommend against using the services of “Journal Publication.” Save your money, write a good paper, and submit it directly to the journal. I think that most of the papers that companies like this one manage to get published will eventually be discovered and retracted.

Addendum:  After I drafted this blog post, I learned of an additional brand likely from the same company called The Research Publication.

The article I’m following.

I am following the progress of the article “Culture and identification of Borrelia spirochetes in human vaginal and seminal secretions” in the journal F1000Research, which is published by Faculty of 1000 and is not on my list. This open-access journal uses the post-publication peer review model, publishing papers upon submission, and then subsequently accepting peer reviews and comments.

I’m following the paper because of its controversial conclusion: “The culture of viable Borrelia spirochetes in genital secretions suggests that Lyme disease could be transmitted by intimate contact from person to person.” The paper finds that Lyme disease could be sexually transmitted.

The article was published on December 18, 2014. Its lead author is affiliated with the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society in Bethesda, Maryland, a group that seems to me to have a political agenda related to Lyme disease and its treatment.

It’s indexed in Google Scholar.

The paper is indexed in Google Scholar.

The United States Centers for Disease Control has a Lyme Disease FAQ that asks and answers the question, “Can Lyme disease be transmitted sexually?” The first line of the extended answer says, “There is no credible scientific evidence that Lyme disease can be spread from person-to-person through sexual contact.”

The first open peer review report was added yesterday, January 5, 2015. It says:

Not Approved

There are a number of issues that mitigate against the authors’ conclusion that Lyme disease can be transmitted sexually. 

As of this writing, there is one comment appended to the article; here are some selections from it:

Reader Comment 29 Dec 2014

Phillip Baker, American Lyme Disease Foundation, USA

“The concept of sexual transmission of borreliosis, which has been resurrected recently by Middelveen et al., was refuted years ago by the well-designed and controlled studies of Moody and Barthold, as well as Woodrum and Oliver, internationally known experts on Lyme disease. These investigators used well-characterized animal models of borreliosis in which infection is much more disseminated and profound than it ever is in humans”

“Sadly, preliminary oral reports of the observations of Middelveen et al. have already generated an inordinate amount of fear and anxiety within the lay community due to sensationalized reports of their unconfirmed findings by an uncritical – and often naïve – press. This has already caused much harm. To date, I have received numerous inquiries from distraught individuals, wondering if they now should even consider marrying their spouse-to-be for fear of contracting Lyme disease that some mistakenly believe to be incurable. Some fear the possibility of giving birth to an infected or congenitally deformed child, because their spouse or spouse-to-be had been diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease in the past.”

Indeed, the article is being reported and described in social media without the qualification that the article has not yet completed peer review, and someone even paid to publish a PR Web press release to publicize the article. The press release has the title, Expanded Study Confirms that Lyme Disease May Be Sexually Transmitted.

A paid press release promoting the article as accepted science. [Note: This image is a composite of two screenshots.]

The press release brags, “We have taken Lyme disease out of the woods and into the bedroom.”

How does the transparency that the F1000Research peer-review model provides balance with the harm that potentially false science can cause when it’s published using the open-access model? This article is an interesting case study.

Toxic journal.

I’ve added the journal Interdisciplinary Toxicology (interTOX) to my list. The journal is associated with the Slovak Toxicology Society (SETOX).

In my opinion the journal is not aimed at communicating science but instead aims to promote a political agenda, namely that most manufactured chemicals cause harm to humans.

The journal’s editor-in-chief is Michal Dubovický. According to Dr. Paul Strode, author of the blog Mr. Dr. Science Teacher:

Dubovický has 53 career publications according to the Web of Science. Since June of 2008, when Interdisciplinary Toxicology was launched, he has published 27 times. Two of those publications were editorials in Interdisciplinary Toxicology and 10 were full length papers in the journal. So, 40% of Dubovický’s publications over the last six-and-a-half years are in his own journal!

The journal was brought to my attention recently because of a 2013 article it published co-authored by MIT’s anti-Roundup crusader Stephanie Seneff. The article was “Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance,” and it appeared in volume 6, number 4 of the journal in 2013.

According to Dr. Strode:

 Stephanie Seneff is a 65-yr-old computer scientist in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Like [her co-author] Samsel, Seneff has magically become an expert in glyphosate biochemistry and human disease while maintaining a career in artificial intelligence. Seneff’s last eight articles have also been published in the journal Entropy, which means she and her coauthors have spent $10,816.00 to publish in the last two years.

Chaotic journal.

Wait, did he say Entropy? Yes, he did. Who publishes Entropy? MDPI, one of the publishers on my list. Stephanie Seneff and her co-authors have successfully used this MDPI journal as their own scholarly vanity press, publishing eight papers in it since 2012.

An excellent blog post about Seneff and her questionable research appeared in the ScienceBlogs blog Respectful Insolence on December 31st.

People with science/political agendas are increasingly using journals like Interdisciplinary Toxicology and publishers like MDPI to disseminate their work, work that quality journals will not publish.

When publishers like MDPI disseminate research by science activists like Stephanie Seneff and her co-authors, I think it’s fair to question the credibility of all the research that MDPI publishes. Will MDPI publish anything for money?

Strange name for a scholarly publisher.

A new open-access publisher with the strange name of Public Science Framework has launched with 42 new journals, most of which are broad and cover fields already saturated with open-access journals.

I think the name Public Science Framework is a poorly-chosen name for a scholarly publisher. It tries to sound lofty and important but actually seems contrived and meaningless. All the good names are taken.

The firm purports to be owned by the “American Institute of Science,” but there’s no website for this so-called institute and I think this name is also contrived. [Update: The website for the so-called American Institute of Science is here.]

I cannot figure out who owns this publisher or where they are really based. The site is completely non-transparent about ownership and location. Some of the journals use the term “American” in their titles, but there’s no real evidence that the “Framework” is based in America. The domain name registration data is blinded, of course.

They are accepting papers in all their journals despite not having any editorial board members yet, at least none that I saw.

The publisher also runs a related gimmick called Public Projects that appears to be a social media platform of some type, for researchers. Like the journals, it’s empty.

One of their journals, with a possibly pirated picture.

Some of the journals have duplicative or otherwise unimaginative titles:

• Chemistry Journal
• Physics Journal
• Public Health Journal

All of the journal home pages are alike, so it’s clear they were created quickly using a template.

Oops.

The site is generally well edited, but there are a few mistakes where they give themselves away.

This new open-access publisher does not fill any need or gap and probably exists only as an easy way to make money for the owners, whoever they are.

Hat tip: Paul Hockett

Appendix: List of Public Science Framework journals as of 2015-01-08

1. Advances in Applied Psychology
2. Agricultural and Biological Sciences Journal
3. American Journal of Astrophysics and Space Science
4. American Journal of Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing
5. American Journal of Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery
6. American Journal of Economics, Finance and Management
7. American Journal of Educational Research
8. American Journal of Geophysics, Geochemistry and Geosystems
9. American Journal of Information Science and Computer Engineering
10. American Journal of Marketing Research
11. American Journal of Mobile Systems, Applications and Services
12. American Journal of Nutrition and Food Science
13. American Journal of Psychology and Cognitive Science
14. American Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
15. American Journal of Social Science Research
16. Bioscience and Bioengineering
17. Chemistry Journal
18. Clinical Medicine Journal
19. International Journal of Advanced Materials Research
20. International Journal of Animal Biology
21. International Journal of Automation, Control and Intelligent Systems
22. International Journal of Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering
23. International Journal of Chemical and Biomolecular Science
24. International Journal of Economics and Business Administration
25. International Journal of Education and Information Technology
26. International Journal of Energy Science and Engineering
27. International Journal of Environmental Planning and Management
28. International Journal of Life Science and Engineering
29. International Journal of Materials Chemistry and Physics
30. International Journal of Mathematics and Computational Science
31. International Journal of Modern Physics and Applications
32. International Journal of Plant Research
33. International Journal of Preventive Medicine Research
34. Journal of Agricultural Science and Engineering
35. Journal of Environment Protection and Sustainable Development
36. Journal of Language, Linguistics and Literature
37. Journal of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering
38. Journal of Physical Education
39. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
40. Physics Journal
41. Public Health Journal
42. Sports Science Research

Also called “ART Group.”

Iran-based Aria Farnoos Isatis Co., Ltd publicly presents itself as an author services company, providing translation and copy editing services to scholarly authors, but a close analysis of the spam email it is sending to journal editors and publishers reveals a questionable motive. The spam email bears this title: “Collaboration proposal in journal publishing/ impact factor increasing.”

I got a copy of a spam email this company sent to a journal in southern Europe. In the message, the company refers to itself as “ART Group.”

These selections from the spam reveal the firm’s true motives. Again, this spam email is a proposal being sent to scholarly journals and publishers:

Our Headquarter is located in Tehran with affiliated offices in Ahvaz, Mashhad and Isfahan. We also have partners in India, Pakistan and Iraq. We also have offices in three major universities of Iran where we provide the aforementioned services to faculty members and researchers. We have more than 4000 regular registered clients who use scientific publishing services of our company.

Regarding the aforementioned descriptions, we offer you a collaboration proposal in two fields: Journal paper submission and Impact factor increasing plan.

Description of proposal: ART Group sends you high numbers of papers, 20 papers per issue for the start. We review the scientific contribution, novelty and scope of the paper and select the appropriate prepares. Then, we prepare the manuscripts performing the language editing, journal formatting and finalize them for submission.

Peer review process: ART group can perform a peer review process for each paper and evaluates the scientific contribution of them. In this case the expected submission to publication period will reduce to 20 days.

Impact factor increasing plan

Description of proposal: ART Group has more than 4000 regular clients who are faculty researchers from different universities in Iran and other countries. We have collaboration contract with three main universities in Iran. As a result, high numbers of scientific papers are handled by our teams. We offer journal selection, editing and scientific consulting services for these papers. We can cite the published papers in your previous issue(s) of your journal in the papers submitted in high Impact Factor journals. These plan guarantees the impact factor increase of the target journal through a 1 to 2 years period.

ART Group cites the papers published in the target journal in the papers submitting to the high IF journals to increase the impact factor and cross or self citation indices of the target journal. In this case we need the archive of previous issues of the journal. Usually, we firstly submit some original and review papers of our clients into your target journal. We expect a rapid peer-reviewing process for our submitted papers. We will submit two to five papers for each issue of your journal and cite these papers in future high IF journals. For each issue, depending on the subject and field of study one to five citations are achievable.

ART Group has currently partnership agreements with several journals and publishers. Also, high numbers of highly H-index authors use our services. Therefore, we have good potential in offering the impact factor increasing services.

The spam email is signed:

Avoid like the plague.

Ali Yadollahpour

I think that A. Yadollahpour is really Ali Yadollahpour. I cannot confirm that he is really a DOAJ (Directory of Open-Access Journals) associate editor as he claims in the spam email, but it may be true.

I was easily able to find unoriginal, uncited text in his article “Applications of Expert Systems in Management of Chronic Kidney Disease: A Review of Predicting Techniques.” Yadollahpour clearly knows how to work the system to his advantage.

I think this guy and his company are a threat to the integrity of scholarly communication. I wonder how many publishers this company has signed up as clients and how much damage it’s already done.

I strongly recommend that scholarly authors and scholarly journals avoid doing business with Aria Farnoos Isatis Co., Ltd.

Appendix:

The full spam email, with the recipient publisher’s name redacted.

Fast publication

I recently learned of the new open-access publisher McMed International. Everything about this publisher is amateurish and even childish. Its website feels like it was designed for children, and no serious researcher should publish here.

McMed launched with 79 journals, many of which gratuitously use geographical terms in their titles. Though based in Chennai, India, McMed publishes journals with titles containing geographical terms such as “American,” “European,” and “Scandinavian.” They even publish the Singapore Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, despite lacking any honest connection to the country.

Another “whopper” from McMed International

The publisher’s URL is http://mcmed.us/, yet it has no honest connection with the United States. McMed also publishes the pseudo-science journal International Journal of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy Research.

As shown in the image above, the journals launched without ISSNs.

I learned about the publisher because someone forwarded me a copy of a spam email soliciting articles for the McMed publication International Journal of Advances in Case Reports. This is seriously one of the dumbest journal titles I have ever heard of, and I have heard of many. The spam email said,

You will be very happy, I promise, to publish your next scientific work (Original Research/Review Articles/Case Studies) with INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN CASE REPORTS and we humbly request your patronage.

We are glad to provide you the insight of our truly global and multi-specialty team of editors and peer-reviewers. Our dedicated proofreaders, cheerfully labor on your Manuscripts in a speedy way, with high quality standards on the back of their minds and offer you very appropriate content improvisation wherever required.

Finally, the spam email promises, “Review Process will complete within 1 days after submission.” I was surprised to observe that the journals contain a fair number of published articles. Who in their right mind would submit here?

Can scholarly publishing get any worse than this?

Scholarly communication is being threatened on many fronts. Publishers like McMed International are a large component of this threat.

Appendix:

List of McMed International Journals as of 2015-01-15

1. American Journal of Advanced Medical & Surgical Research
2. American Journal of Advances in Nursing Research
3. American Journal of Biological and Pharmaceutical Research
4. American Journal of Computer Science and Information Technology
5. American Journal of Computer Science and Research
6. American Journal of Engineering Science and Research
7. American Journal of Human Genetics and Molecular Biology
8. American Journal of Oral Medicine and Radiology
9. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
10. Asian Pacific Journal of Nursing
11. Australian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research
12. British Journal of Material Sciences and Technology
13. British Journal of Nanotechnology and Applications
14. Canadian Journal of Biological and Microbiology Research
15. Der Pharmacologia Sinica
16. European Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
17. European Journal of Environmental Ecology
18. European Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
19. European Journal of Marine Biology and Entomology Research
20. European Journal of molecular biology and biochemistry
21. European Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
22. European Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine
23. European Journal of Nursing
24. European Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Research
25. European Journal of Pharmacology & Toxicology
26. European Journal of Zoology
27. International Journal of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy Research
28. International Journal of Advanced Analytical Chemistry
29. International Journal of Advanced Ayurveda Research
30. International Journal of Advanced Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
31. International Journal of Advanced Dental Research
32. International Journal of Advanced Engineering Science and Technology
33. International Journal of Advanced Immunology Research
34. International Journal of Advanced Oncology Research
35. International Journal of Advanced Paediatrics
36. International Journal of Advanced Zoological Research
37. International Journal of Advances in Case Reports
38. International Journal of Advances in Diabetic Research
39. International Journal of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences
40. International Journal of Andrology Research
41. International Journal of Animal Health Development
42. International Journal of Animal, Veterinary & Fishery Sciences
43. International Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
44. International Journal of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology
45. International Journal of Business Intelligence
46. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
47. International Journal of Community Health Nursing
48. International Journal of Dermatology & Cosmetic Sciences
49. International Journal of Economics and Finance Research
50. International Journal of Educational Management & Research
51. International Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism Research
52. International Journal of Food and Dairy Technology
53. International Journal of Gastroenterology Studies
54. International Journal of Homeopathy Research
55. International Journal of Integrative Andrology and Endocrinology
56. International Journal of Mathematics Education Research
57. International Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology Research
58. International Journal of Neuro & Psychological Disorders
59. International Journal of Nursing Education & Research
60. International Journal of Nutrition and Food Research
61. International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing
62. International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research
63. International Journal of Odontology Sciences
64. International Journal of Ophthalmic Research
65. International Journal of Orthopaedics and Physiotherapy
66. International Journal of Pain Research
67. International Journal of Pediatric Nursing
68. International Journal of Psychology and Social Sciences
69. International Journal of Renal Diseases
70. International Journal of Research in Infectious Diseases
71. International Journal of Research in Mechanical and Materials Engineering
72. International Journal of Respiratory Research
73. International Journal of Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy
74. International Journal of Traditional System of Medicine
75. International Journal of Veterinary Science & Research
76. International Journal of Yoga and Unani Medicine
77. Journal of Advanced Nursing Practice
78. Scandinavian Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Research
79. Singapore Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

The academic life.

There are several organizations around the world called Institute of Strategic and International Studies. The one I want to review here is the one run by Dr. Detelin Elenkov of Angelo State University in Texas.

The website for the “Institute” gives no headquarters location, but the signature in Elenkov’s email claims that its “Global Office” is based here:

1717 Atlantic Blvd.
Key West, Florida, 33040 USA

Google Maps shows a house at this address. Is Elenkov the owner of the house?

Detelin Elenkov

According to its website, the “Institute” will run at least six conferences in 2015, all in popular tourist destinations:

2015 Conferences

Miami Beach, Florida = January 4-6
Key West, Florida = March 15-17
Paris, France = May 18-20
Bangkok, Thailand = July 5-7
Orlando, Florida = August 20-22
Las Vegas, Nevada = October 25-27

Registration for the U.S. conferences costs $350. One can also attend the conferences over the internet. If you want an extra copy of the conference proceedings, it’s $50 for the copy and $25 for the shipping, according to the website.

The “Institute” publishes three broad-scoped journals:

• Journal of Strategic and International Studies™
• Review of Strategic and International Studies™
• Review of Social Studies, Law and Psychology™

Regarding peer review, the publisher states,

All paper submissions will be double-blind peer-refereed on continual basic [sic] throughout the year, and authors will be notified of the review outcome within 3-5 weeks after the arrival of their submissions.

That’s a fast peer review. The journals are not open-access. They are not toll-access either. It’s almost impossible as far as I can determine to access the journals’ content. I cannot even access the journals’ tables of contents. When I try, I get this:

No access.

So if you are a really bad writer, or if your research is really poor, this institute’s journals might be a really good place for you to publish. Almost no one will see your work, but you can still get academic credit for publishing it.

And you may get a university-sponsored vacation as well.

What ?

Attention humanists! You now have an open-access journal where you can submit your humanities research.

Except, wait, maybe not.

The journal is the International Journal Online of Humanities (IJOHMN). It originates in Bhopal, India, and it just launched its inaugural issue, volume 1, issue 1.

The issue contains five open-access articles.

The journal claims “Norweigan accreditation.” Moreover, perhaps recognizing that there are relatively few grant opportunities for humanists, this journal has a very reasonable author fee:

Subscription & processing fee for online publication, Rs. 1200 for Indian authors & 45 US Dollars for Foreign authors. ( No extra fee for co authors.)

We’re not sure why the journal uses the term “subscription … fee,” as the articles are all open-access.

Speaking of the articles, we found some unoriginal content in one of them. We looked closely at the article, “A Comparative study of Gandhi and Nehru and in their Autobiographies” and read this passage:

Autobiography is usually defined as a retrospective narrative written about one’s life, in the first person and in prose. Such writing has appeared with increasing frequency in Western Literature since the beginning of nineteenth century but after World War II, it gained considerable significance.

Here’s what it looks like in the article:

Where are the quotation marks? The citation?

Unfortunately, this text appeared previously in this book chapter:

The original source.

Regrettably, there is no citation, no quotation marks, and no other indication that the text is someone else’s work.

This is obviously a very weak attempt at starting a humanities journal. We recommend that humanists and others avoid the International Journal Online of Humanities.

And if they happen to come out with an International Journal Online of Syntax, we recommend you avoid that one too.

Hat tip: Dr. Jerry Won Lee

One more thing:

Oops.

A publisher named The Global Journals, based in Gujarat, India, publishes hundreds of articles each month in its four broad-coverage journals. I don’t understand how such a low-quality and dishonest publisher is able to attract and publish so many articles.

The Global Journals publishes these four journals:

Global Journal for Research Analysis (GJRA)
International Journal of Scientific Research (IJSR)
PARIPEX Indian Journal of Research (PIJR)
Indian Journal of Applied Research (IJAR)

They are all published monthly; new issues for two of the journals appear at the beginning of each month. New issues for the other two appear in the middle of each month.

Table: Number of articles published by each journal from October, 2014 to February, 2015.

The table shows that the Indian Journal of Applied Research published 248 articles in February, 2015! Why are so many researchers submitting papers to this publisher? Is it the easy acceptance and a relatively low author fee this publisher offers?

The journals all have flashing text claiming impact factors, but none has an authentic impact factor — this information is false and misleading.

Looking at the journals’ “Indexing” pages reveals more misleading and false information. The pages have the logos of many legitimate companies and services, but few or none of the services include the four journals. For example, the Thomson Reuters logo is there, but I cannot find any of the four journals on the TR Master List.

On the other hand, the pages have the logos for several fake impact factor companies. Some also have the image for SCIRUS, but this service no longer exists.

Like many predatory publishers, this one provides contradictory information about licensing, specifically policies regarding copyright and Creative Commons licenses.

For example, all four journals’ homepages prominently display a Creative Commons license at the bottom of the pages:

However, each journal requires authors whose papers are accepted for publication (that is, most all of them) to sign a form that transfers copyright to the publisher.

Summary: The Global Journals is another popular, yet low-quality, open-access publisher that uses misleading information to attract article manuscripts and their accompanying payments. All honest researchers should avoid this questionable publisher.

Looks very scientific.

I recently learned about the Canadian Scientific Journal, a scholarly journal that is much more popular in Ukraine than in Canada, for some reason.

It appears that the journal has a fast peer review and publishes articles almost immediately. The journal says,

The acceptance of articles for the current issue of Canadian Scientific Journal is finished 5 days before its issuing.

Eh?

It also has many pictures that appear to have been lifted from other websites. Here is its masthead:

I’m sure this means something.

The journal has published two issues so far, and I understand that researchers in the former Soviet Republics are being spammed for manuscript submissions.

Many, if not most, of the authors are from Ukraine, and the journal’s fonts don’t display properly.

I was unable to tell from the journal’s website how much they charge for author fees. The journal claims to be not-for-profit.

Some researchers outside North America want to publish in journals based in North America, and there is nothing wrong with that.

However, advertising that a journal is based in Canada when it is really based in Ukraine is misleading, and wrong.

Hat tip: Dr. Daniyar Sapargaliyev

Very popular in China.

The journal Computer Modelling and New Technologies is published by the Latvian Transport and Telecommunication Institute (Transporta un sakaru institūts). It normally publishes quarterly (except five issues were published in 2014).

The problem, however, is that there’s a second website for a journal with the exact same title, except pretty much all the papers in that version of the journal are written by authors from China.

The institute.

First, here’s the authentic Computer Modelling and New Technologies. It began publishing in 1999. It’s not a predatory journal.

Second, the questionable version of the journal. It is found here: Computer Modelling and New Technologies. It uses the same title as the authentic version of the journal. It claims it’s published by the Latvian Transport Development and Education Association, however, not the Transport and Telecommunication Institute.

Its website has issues from 2001 on. From 2006-2013 it published quarterly. However, in 2014, it published 12 issues. While the one issue published in 2015 has some European authors, the previous issues have chiefly Chinese authors.

The fact that there are two websites for two very similar journals with the exact same title, with no links between them and no explanation on either one why there are two websites, raises these questions:

Why would two separate Latvian government agencies publish nearly identical journals, with one publishing chiefly research carried out in China and with Chinese authors?

Is the second one a really hijacked version of the journal, its publisher masquerading as a government agency?

Why are almost all the authors in the second website all from China, especially those with articles published in the 2014 issues?

Suspicious.

Both journals claim to be included in the following scholarly indexes:

INSPEC
VINITI
CAS Database
EI Compendex

However, the list of journals covered in INSPEC available here, http://www.theiet.org/resources/inspec/support/docs/loj.cfm?type=pdf does not include Computer Modelling and New Technologies.

I’m told that authors publishing papers in the second journal — the questionable one — are required to pay article processing charges to publish there, but the fees not mentioned on the website.

I understand that Chinese authors receive top academic credit and even monetary rewards when they publish in journals covered by certain indexes. It’s possible that the Chinese authors are publishing in a fake journal and being tricked into believing that they are publishing in a journal that is indexed in legitimate academic indexes.

How can we help Chinese scholars identify and avoid such potential scams?

Lots of problems here.

The International Journal of Information Research claims to be published by the Society of Scholarly Publishing and Open Access Resources (SPOARS), but the only information I can find about this “society” is on the journal’s website itself. The journal is low quality, has unoriginal content, and is a good example of how NOT to manage a scholarly journal.

Launched in 2011, the journal has published 13 issues so far. It appears most of the recent authors hail from India and Nigeria.

The journal’s editorial board includes two prominent American librarians, including at least one whose affiliation is outdated. Most of the other editorial board members are from India.

It is easy to find examples of unattributed, uncited, un-quotation-marked text in articles published in the journal. Here’s an example from the 2013 article “Journal Citations in Horticulture Doctoral Dissertations [1991-2010]: A Case Study“:

Unoriginal?

It appears the first two sentences closely match content from this 2004 pre-print:

The original work.

I learned about this journal from a Philippine librarian who told me he emailed a manuscript to the journal asking the editor whether it might be appropriate to submit formally.

According to the librarian, the journal then published the article without peer review and without revision. He emailed the journal demanding that they retract the article, but they have so far refused.

The journal requires that authors transfer copyright to the publisher, a non-standard practice for OA library science journals.

Apostrophe fail.

The articles are poorly copyedited and contain prominent errors, as the screenshot above shows.

On the one hand, it’s great that this journal’s content is open access and freely available, but what’s the point when the content is lifted, poorly edited, and of little value?

This questionable company does a poor job of making up names.

Last December, I wrote a post about a possible paper mill, called Journal Publication. Now it appears the company behind Journal Publication is very nimble and has created several new brands, each represented by a new website offering the same “get published” services.

As shown above, this company has difficulty with personal names. It claims that one member of its “panel of PHD qualified experts” is “Biblical Greek [from] Standford [sic] University.” This blooper is from its International Journal of Modern Research & Development website, which is not really a journal at all, just another name for its possible paper mill services.

It’s clear from this discount offer where they target their marketing.

Here is a list of all the scholarly publishing-related websites I found that appear to belong to the same company:

Possible Paper Mill Websites

Ace Publication Consultants

International Journal of Modern Research & Development (IJMRD)

International Union of Research Journal Publishing (IURJP)

Journal Publication

Prime Journal Consultants

Research Publication

They use compelling images apparently lifted from other websites. Image from here: http://www.iurjp.com/about/

Through a Google search, I also found these websites advertising services that appear to be from the same company. Most are related to publishing and web design:

360 Custom Websites
App Maisters
Best Tutors Online
Brand Crux
GetReputed
Intelysis Art
International Book Publishing
iPrismTech
Logo Jeez
Onedayessay.com
PhD Research Consultants
SCITMission
XYZ Creative Group

This company shamelessly copies logos from legitimate companies onto its many websites. I do not know where it is based.

A publisher to avoid.

Knowledge Enterprises Journals is a subscription publisher that acts like a predatory publisher. It charges author fees, yet it’s not open-access. It requires copyright transfer, and it sends lots of annoying, high pressure, spam.

The publisher has seven, broad-scope journals in its portfolio. It uses the free Open Journals Systems as its publishing platform, and its website is spare and plain. It looks like they used all the default settings.

The publisher gives this as its address:

340 S Lemon Ave #7750
Walnut CA 91789 USA

… but this is a mail forwarding service company’s address. It’s really based somewhere in the 612 area code, that is, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The publisher says this regarding its author fees:

AUTHOR FEES

This journal charges the following author fees.

Article Submission: 100.00 (USD)

Authors are required to pay an Article Submission Fee as part of the submission process to contribute to review costs.

Article Publication: 49.00 (USD)

For authors that have two or more co-authors, research funding, or work for an institution that routinely covers the cost of journal charges, the fee if [sic] $75 per page. For all authors that do not meet at least one of the above criteria, the fee is $49 per page.

So it appears authors have to pay a submission fee, a publication fee, and then a per-page fee. The fees are not congruent with the low quality of the journals.

Manipulative email strategy.

The publisher uses the increasingly-common “my previous email” trick. This tactic involves making a reference to a fictional, earlier email, one that was never sent. It’s designed to make the recipient feel guilty for not responding to the email and to focus their attention on the current email. Several people forwarded me copies of Knowledge Enterprises Journals’ emails indicating to me that they found them annoying. I have added this publisher to my list, making an exception because its practices match those of many of the low-quality publishers on the list, even though it’s a subscription publisher.

One of the publisher’s journals, Astronomical Review, also appears on two other websites:

http://astroreview.com/
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tare20#.VRMy92PpViM

It appears as one of this publisher’s journals here:

http://www.journals.ke-i.org/index.php/AstRv/about/index

I do not know why the journal appears on three websites or why one of those sites is Taylor & Francis. What association does Taylor & Francis have with this journal?

I recommend that researchers avoid Knowledge Enterprises Journals.

Appendix: List of Knowledge Enterprises Journals as of 2015-03-25:

1. Astronomical Review
2. Biomedical Engineering Review
3. International Biology Review
4. International Chemistry Review
5. Journal of Economics and Banking
6. Medical Research Archives
7. Quarterly Physics Review

Avoid this publisher.

The Indian open-access publisher SCIENCEDOMAIN international invited a professor from Montclair State University to complete a peer review on a manuscript it had received, and he agreed. Less than a week later, the professor got a surprising email from the publisher.

SCIENCEDOMAIN international emailed the professor to tell him they no longer needed his peer review, for they had already received enough and had accepted the paper. The professor was just about to complete his review.

Here’s the email the professor received:

Dear Dr. James J. Campanella,

Thank you for agreeing to review this manuscript.

You may appreciate that, we are committed to complete the peer-review formalities within a strict time frame, to help the authors. As a result of constant effort of our editorial team, we have already received minimum number of quality review comments to complete the peer review of this manuscript. Final decision was also communicated to authors at the end of deadline (i.e. 21 days).

So, very politely we want to inform you that in this occasion, we would not be able to use your valuable comments. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

As per our policy, when we receive minimum number of review comments, we inform other agreed reviewers to save their precious time.
But we will be delighted if we can get your expert comments for our future manuscripts. We are thankful to you for agreeing to spend your valuable time for this review.

With regards

Partha Dey

SCIENCEDOMAIN international

www.sciencedomain.org

Reg. Offices:

UK: SCIENCEDOMAIN international, Third Floor, 207 Regent Street, London, W1B 3HH,UK,Registered in England and Wales, Company Registration Number: 8988029
USA: SCIENCEDOMAIN international, One Commerce Centre, 1201, Orange St. # 600, Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware, USA, Corporate File Number: 5049777
India: SCIENCEDOMAIN international, U GF, DLF City Phase-III, Gurgaon, 122001, Delhi NCR, Corp. Firm Registration Number: 255 (2010-11)
Editorial office: SCIENCEDOMAIN international, Guest House Road, Street no – 1/6, Tarakeswar, Hooghly, WB, 712410, India, Corp. Firm Registration Number: L77527.

So, it appears SCIENCEDOMAIN international casts a wide net for peer review but then cancels outstanding requests when it gets enough positive reviews.

It is unethical to abuse peer reviewers in this way.

The publisher’s email is signed by Partha Dey. I found this LinkedIn profile from a Partha Dey who works for SCIENCEDOMAIN international:

Peer review manager?

He looks quite young and lists his occupation as “Database operating at Science Domain International.” So it appears they have a kid working in IT managing their peer review process.

ScienceDomain has been doing a massive amount of spamming recently. The publisher has been on my list for several years, and I stand by this listing.

I recommend that researchers not submit papers to — or accept peer review requests from — SCIENCEDOMAIN international.

Appendix:

List of ScienceDomain international journals as of 2015-03-28:

Advances in Research
American Chemical Science Journal
American Journal of Experimental Agriculture
Annual Research & Review in Biology
Archives of Current Research International
Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology
British Biotechnology Journal
British Journal of Applied Science & Technology
British Journal of Economics, Management & Trade
British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science
British Journal of Environment and Climate Change
British Journal of Mathematics & Computer Science
British Journal of Medicine and Medical Research
British Journal of Pharmaceutical Research
British Microbiology Research Journal
Cardiology and Angiology: An International Journal
European Journal of Medicinal Plants
European Journal of Nutrition & Food Safety
International Blood Research & Reviews
International Journal of Biochemistry Research & Review
International Journal of Medical and Pharmaceutical Case Reports
International Journal of Plant & Soil Science
International Journal of TROPICAL DISEASE & Health
International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal
International Research Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry
International STD Research & Reviews
Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology
Journal of Advances in Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Journal of Agriculture and Ecology Research International
Journal of Applied Life Sciences International
Journal of Cancer and Tumor International
Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International
Journal of Scientific Research and Reports
Ophthalmology Research: An International Journal
Physical Science International Journal

Joseph who?

This publisher describes itself like this:

Joseph Publishing Group is an international peer-reviewed science and medicine journals.

It goes downhill from there.

Joseph Publishing Group is a brand-new publisher. It has 17 biomedical sciences journals in its portfolio. Joseph claims that it’s based in the U.S. state of Georgia, but its butchering of its own address indicates otherwise:

Your slip is showing.

In the above address, “Somers by” should be “Somersby,” and “Alpha Retta” should be “Alpharetta.” Also, in the U.S. — unlike in some other English-speaking countries — we do not place a comma between the street number and the street. It’s obvious that this is a case of a publisher misrepresenting (lying about) its true headquarters location.

The domain-name registration data does not specify a location, but I found this:

Domain Name: JOSEPHPUBLISHINGGROUP.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Registrant Name: Rajshekar Reddy
Registrant Organization: Joseph Publishing Group
Name Server: NS27.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS28.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned

Thus, I would guess that Joseph is likely really based in South Asia and that a more fitting name would be “Rajshekar Publishing Group.”

Analysis

I think this is another case of someone trying to “cash in” on the easy income that predatory publishing offers. With the launch of a single website, you’re in business and ready to start accepting and publishing papers in exchange for cash.

This case is a particularly amateurish and dishonest one. The term “Publishing Group” is common among South Asian OA publishers and mimics OMICS Publishing Group.

Appendix: List of Joseph Publishing Group journals as of 2015-04-09:

1. Joseph Journal of Anesthesia and Clinical Care
2. Joseph Journal of Cancer Biology and Treatment
3. Joseph Journal of Cardiology and Clinical Research
4. Joseph Journal of Cell Biology and Cell Metabolism
5. Joseph Journal of Clinical Dermatology and Therapy
6. Joseph Journal of Clinical Immunology and Immunotherapy
7. Joseph Journal of Clinical Studies and Medical Case Reports
8. Joseph Journal of Cytology and Tissue Biology
9. Joseph Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome Disorders
10. Joseph Journal of Emergency Medicine, Trauma and Surgical Care
11. Joseph Journal of Food Science and Nutrition
12. Joseph Journal of Hematology, Blood Transfusion and Disorders
13. Joseph Journal of Medical Genomics and Biomarkers
14. Joseph Journal of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology
15. Joseph Journal of Neonatology and Pediatrics
16. Joseph Journal of Ophthalmology and Clinical Research
17. Joseph Journal of Stem Cells Research, Development and Therapy

Cultivating money.

The journal Agrociencia, published by the Colegio de Postgraduados in Mexico, demands that submitting authors subscribe to the journal before their submissions will be considered for peer-review. A subscription costs $160, and there are additional fees once the paper is accepted.

These hidden fees, resembling a type of mordida, are not mentioned in the author guidelines. The text below is copied from an email sent by Agrociencia in response to a prospective author’s inquiry:

Time for publication: 8-10 months, depending upon writing in fluent English and scientific value of the manuscript.

Articles are published only in English and Spanish.

After an official reception letter is issued and in order to start the peer-review process, the corresponding author must pay a one-time annual subscription to Agrociencia (US$ 160.00); this payment does not imply that the manuscript will be published.

If the manuscript is approved for publication, the corresponding author must pay the translation (US$ 200-300) from English into Spanish, directly to a translator assigned by Agrociencia.

The journal’s website states that subscriptions cost $150, not $160. Also, the journal is open-access, so subscriptions are not needed to access the published content.

Colegio de cobros ocultos.

As indicated, the journal also requires submitting authors to fund a translation of the article, an additional $200-$300 cost.

The journal is also called Revista Agrociencia. The mandatory subscription and translation charges are non-standard in scholarly publishing and perhaps unethical. The journal needs to be more transparent about the fees it imposes on its authors.

Researchers in the agricultural sciences submitting papers to this journal will be taking a risk; there may be additional charges beyond those mentioned here. For authors considering submitting here, I recommend finding a better journal.

The journal has an impact factor of 0.049 according to Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports.

Hat tip: Dr. Jaime Teixeira da Silva

Vanity press

If you are a bogus scientist who wants to publish a fake scientific article, I’d like to recommend SCIRP, Scientific Research Publishing. They’d be happy to have you as a customer. They’ve just published another unscientific epidemiology article.

About a year ago I wrote here about a fringe science article on the Fukushima nuclear fallout that SCIRP published. Despite protests from legitimate scientists, SCIRP refused to consider retracting the article or to publish a free response. The junk science article remains published.

Now the same authors, both anti-nuclear activists, have published another article in the journal — they are repeat customers for SCIRP, and SCIRP aims to keep its paying customers happy. The journal is the Open Journal of Pediatrics.

Swedish physicist Mattias Lantz, Ph.D. has written an entry in his blog explaining the scientific flaws in the new article, which was published on March 15.

Dr. Lantz’s blog is called Numbers and opinions, and in his blog post entitled “Another take on S&M – congenital malformations” he also documents that SCIRP’s editorial practices are unsound. [“S&M” refers to the authors of the questionable article, Sherman and Mangano].

Lantz is gathering information from the journal’s editorial board members and has sent an inquiry to each of the journal’s 23 editorial board members. So far, he reports receiving replies from 15. Summarizing the responses received so far, Lantz found:

5 of them have performed some sort of editing or peer reviewing of one or a few articles
2 can not remember if they ever did anything for this journal
6 have never been asked to perform any of the duties expected
2 were not aware of that they are on the list, thus their names were put there without their consent

He also sent an inquiry to the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Carl E. Hunt, of George Washington University, who replied,

I am listed as the editor-in-chief, but as it has turned out, I have no substantive responsibilities and am not involved in editorial decisions. I therefore plan to resign my “in name only” position.

I recommend reading Lantz’s blog post, which provides further confirmation that SCIRP is a predatory publisher that willingly accepts and publishes junk science just to increase its revenue. Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) does not follow standard, scholarly publishing editorial practices to ensure scientific integrity.

A front for a paper mill?

Paper mills are companies that write scholarly articles and then sell the authorship to researchers needing extra publications. They then arrange to have the articles published in prestigious journals. I have evidence that a possible paper mill is looking for journals in North America that will collaborate with it and publish its brokered articles in exchange for money.

Paper mills are in the business of selling authorship on articles to authors needing publications. A paper mill may have someone on its staff actually write the articles, or they may contract this function out. The articles may have four or five authors, and these authorship spots are sold to their customers.

Some paper mills will submit articles individually, the way it’s normally done, acting on the corresponding author’s behalf.

But I am now seeing the possibility of larger, more wholesale operations taking shape. Journal editors have forwarded to me solicitation emails from possible paper mills seeking to publish papers in impact factor journals from North America. Here is an example:

From: 李丽 <ll@bhsedu.com>
Subject: Inquiry for information about time of reviewing and charges for publication. 
Date: April 16, 2015 at 10:13:00 PM PDT
To: peggy.chinn

Dear respected editor,

I am the director of foreign trade of International Bauhaus Science Press. I heard that your Journal(ADVANCES IN NURSING

SCIENCE) is very famous and is also popular in readers. Now our Press has received many articles of relevant field. When searching your website we found that some of the articles meet the requirements for publication in your esteemed Journal so we want to contribute to you. Could you please inform us the time of reviewing and the charges? Looking forward to your early reply.

Best regard.

Alice Li

The publisher mentioned in the letter is International Bauhaus Science Press, and this may be a front for a paper mill. I added it to my list of questionable publishers in November, 2014. Its website was skeletal, with little content, and it is now blank. It was located here, but this link is dead. A Google search for the press retrieves this site, but it isn’t really a publisher’s website. [The Wayback Machine’s version of the original Bauhaus site is here.]

The journal they solicited, Advances in Nursing Science, is a respected journal with an impact factor — just what paper mill customers want.

I would advise journal editors to be on the lookout for such solicitations. I think these are not legitimate and should be rejected, as the editor of Advances in Nursing Science wisely did.