Going downhill fast.

The Archives of Biological Sciences is the official journal of the Serbian Biological Society. Here I describe one case in which the journal accepted a submitted paper within 24 hours and without any peer review.

I have verified that the Archives of Biological Sciences currently has an impact factor of 0.791.

Also, according to the Directory of Open Access Journals, the journal does not impose any article processing charges.

Within 24 hours after submitting the paper to the journal, the corresponding author received an acceptance letter and  invoice. [Both have been redacted to remove identifying information.]

The invoice demanded € 1785. The email containing the invoice was sent by the journal’s editor-in-chief, Prof. Dr. Božidar Ćurčić, who stated, “PLS. OPEN THE ATTACHMENT / PAYMENT IMMEDIATELY!!! University of Belgrade – Faculty of Biology.”

According to a document shared with the corresponding author, the journal began to impose article processing charges in March, 2014.

With a verifiable impact factor and 24-hour, peer-review-free acceptance, I imagine the Society is making a lot of money at this time. The corresponding author reports that the submission was 10 A4 pages. Here is a selection from the new APC document:

Urgent publishing? Just pay double … or triple.

As you can see, authors can pay extra and get almost immediate publication.

I’ve added this journal to my list. I strongly recommend against submitting papers to the Archives of Biological Sciences.

Updated 2014-06-12 to add a link to the invoice.

Their current logo (top) and the old one.

Science Publishing Group (note the unoriginal name) is a predatory publisher that first appeared in late 2012. When it appeared, it used the logo from Google Chrome (bottom panel, above), but it later adopted an original logo (top panel).

This is deception — they are not really based here.

This publisher’s true location is a mystery to me. It uses a New York City address (see screenshot above) as its headquarters location, but I think this address is merely that of a mail-forwarding service. I have no idea where this publisher is really based. It could be anywhere — with the likely exception of New York City.

No one answers the phone when I call.

Dark pseudo-science.

I recently learned about the above article that appeared in the publisher’s American Journal of Modern Physics. As you can see from the title, the article “corrects” Einstein’s famous mass–energy equivalence equation. The author, an apparent sycophant of the Egyptian Mohamed El Naschie, concludes,

With that we feel quite confident that the mystery of the dark energy has been solved at least in principle by Mohamed El Naschie and that it is essentially not a mystery any more (p. 262)

So, the article claims to confirm El Naschie’s purported discovery of the nature of dark energy. In my opinion, this article is an excellent example of pseudo-science, and no legitimate publisher would allow such rubbish to appear in its journals.

If you publish in any one of Science Publishing Group’s many journals, it’s possible that your article will appear next to an article that is pure rubbish, such as the article described above, and this will threaten the scientific credibility of your article.

Therefore, I recommend that all honest scholars not submit any papers to the journals of Science Publishing Group.

Hat tip: Nils Berglund

… except those in Colorado.

People in the U.S. state of Colorado are unable to access two questionable scholarly publishers. I think the sites are blocked here to try to prevent me from analyzing them and adding them to my list.

The publishers are these:

• ScholArena = http://www.scholarena.com/
• Annex Publishers = http://www.annexpublishers.com/

I recently received three emails from researchers in India, Finland, and Australia alerting me to the cleverly-named, new publisher ScholArena.

When I try to access the ScholArena website, I get this message:

Only for Colorado!

When I try to access Annex Publishers, I get a blank page. I had already added Annex Publishers to my list in July, 2013.

“Radical Novelty of Research.”

After I got the tips about ScholArena, I regularly kept checking the website, thinking it had gone down temporarily. After about ten days, I realized something strange was happening — everyone could access the site but me.

I then sent an email to my colleagues at the Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver, asking them whether they could access it. None could access it at work or at home — home in various suburbs of Denver.

Then a colleague went to neighboring New Mexico and reported that she could access the site without any problem. Thus, I am concluding that access is cut off for Colorado.

However, I was able to access both publishers using the free, anonymous IP service called Anonymouse! I have analyzed both publishers and found they meet the criteria and have added them to my list.

I am assuming that the two publishers are related and likely owned by the same person. The spam emails from both publishers look very similar, plus they both are playing games with access.

Finally, ScholArena gives this as its office address:

Not really an office.

However, looking at this address in Google Maps street view, one sees a crowded apartment building:

415 Grover Street … editorial office?

I doubt the operation is really based here and think they are just using the address to make it appear the publisher is based in the United States.

Hat tips: Dr. Tero Kivelä, Dr. Ken Friedman, Dr. Rithvik Radesh, and my colleagues at Auraria Library.

They want to sound like BioMed Central.

JSciMed Central is a questionable open-access publisher of 36 journals. It lists two U.S. addresses as its headquarters locations, and I’ve long suspected these were dummy addresses. Now I’ve learned the publisher’s real headquarters location.

The publisher wants you to think it’s based in the U.S., but it’s not.

These are the two addresses that JSciMed Central gives on its ‘contact us’ page. The first one is really the address of Harvard Business Services, Inc. in Lewes, Delaware, United States. It’s a company that does easy, cheap, and fast business incorporations.

The second address belongs to Market Street Shipping, a company itself mysterious because it lacks a website. The link here goes to a Google Plus website for the business.

JScimed Central is really located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. This is confirmed by looking up the company in an Indian online business directory called companyinfoz.com.

Finally, the honest address.

Another online directory also gives the same information. Both list the company’s director as Jacob Nixon Geddam.

So, I think it’s very likely that Jacob is also the owner of Jacobs Publishers, another highly-questionable publisher on my list:

Jacob Nixon Geddam, that is.

Note that the “J” symbol here matches that used on JSciMed Central. This publisher purports to be headquartered at this address:

9600 GREAT HILLS
TRIAL # 150 W
AUSTIN, TEXAS
78759 ( TRAVIS COUNTY)
E-MAIL : info@jacobspublishers.com
Phone : 512-400-0398 512-400-0398 FREE

But I suspect this is also a dummy address.

What other publishing brands does this guy own? Hyderabad, India is also the home of OMICS Publishing Group, so predatory publishing seems to be the growth industry of the Hyderabad area.

Publishers have an ethical obligation to provide full and honest information about their operations. I think it is unethical to hide or misrepresent information as these two publishers have done.

I recommend against submitting papers to dishonest, non-transparent, and sneaky publishers such as these. If they are dishonest about basic things like their address, they will probably be dishonest about other things as well.

Hat tip: James Sarrel

Michael Hoenig

New York attorney Michael Hoenig is the author of the column “Complex Litigation” that appears in the New York Law Journal. He works for the law firm Herzfeld & Rubin.

I read these two recent columns by Mr. Hoenig in which he describes the problems of using scholarly articles in court cases:

‘Unreliable’ Articles, ‘Trial by Literature’ Revisited (May 12, 2014)

‘Unreliable’ Articles: More on Peer Review’s Frailties (June 9, 2014)

Although Mr. Hoenig doesn’t use the term “predatory publishers,” he certainly seems to be aware of and understand some of the problems these journals cause.

Referring to them, in his May 12 article, Mr. Hoenig writes,

Many so-called “open-access” journals that accept articles charge the author a fee. That dynamic seems to create potential conflicts of interest. Many of these journals publish articles without peer review. Others do a so-called peer review that is laughable and porous.

New York Law Journal

He refers to some scholarly literature as hearsay and warns that, in court, journal articles cannot be cross-examined. As a litigator, he is especially aware of the problems predatory publishers cause in litigation. He continues,

Sometimes, the quality and trustworthiness of professional writings fall between the extremes of “reliability” and “junk,” into a vast gray area of “quasi-reliability” or “not-quite-reliable” or “not-quite-junk.” The articles may be published by journals with professional-sounding names or by institutions or entities recognized in the technical world, thereby creating an aura of trustworthiness that masks the diminished quality of the substantive content—existing somewhere along the scale in the gray zone (perhaps with enough slivers of accuracy thrown in to help disguise the “junky” portion). What happens when the expert relies on such less-than-reliable professional literature? What should be the consequences of such reliance?

This sounds like a description of predatory journals to me. Predatory publishers are beginning to have a negative influence beyond academia. Researchers aren’t the only consumers of scholarly research — other professions, such as law, clinical medicine, and public policy — extensively rely on it.

In his June 9 column, Mr. Hoenig concludes,

Similarly, if courts, willy nilly, infer reliability of the hearsay simply because it was published, the courts are ignoring realities of the publishing marketplace, hampering the justice system in its search for the truth and defaulting on their judicial gatekeeping task.

This statement highlights the new reality that predatory journals have created. No longer can one rely on research just because it was published in a scholarly journal. Predatory journals are essentially counterfeit, accepting much bogus and sloppy research just to earn the author fees.

Under the subscription model, libraries and individual subscribers would cancel the subscriptions of journals that published faulty research or that otherwise underperformed. Subscribers had a powerful voice in the market, a voice that played a very effective role in quality control. Open-access publishing models remove this voice; consequently, we are seeing an increase in the publication of junk science.

Don’t venture to this publisher.

Here’s a new scholarly open-access publisher of three journals: LifeSciFeed Ventures. It follows the established formula for setting up a new scholarly publishing operation, yet it fails miserably.

The first thing one notices about this publisher is the strange titles its journals have:

• Plant Sciences Feed
• Life Sciences Feed
• Pharma Sciences Feed

In my mind, “feed” means food for animals. I think they are using the term in a different sense here though, feed as in data feed not animal feed.

Next, one notices that the publisher offers a very fast peer review and publishing process:

Has scholarly publishing really come to this?

I cannot find the amount of the article processing charges on the publisher’s website. This ought to be stated clearly.

Also, the publisher requires that authors transfer copyright, which is non-standard for open-access journals (in open-access journals generally, the authors keep copyright and publish the work under a Creative Commons license). The few published articles don’t bear any licensing information.

Now that all journals have high impact factors, the measure has no value.

Like most predatory journals these days, this publisher’s three journals all claim very impressive impact factors, despite the fact that they are brand new and their few published articles have likely never been cited.

This publisher’s author guidelines are copied from other publishers without attribution. Finally, it appears that the publisher’s headquarters location is in an apartment in India’s vast Maharashtra state.

Another scholarly publisher based in a spare bedroom.

I can’t imagine that any serious scholar would consider submitting a paper to this publisher’s three counterfeit journals. There are numerous start-up publishers like this one that claim to be premier publishers with fast acceptance and high impact factors, but most — like this one — are unprofessional and highly questionable operations.

Hat tip: Michael Esman

Heart attack journal

The medical journal Experimental & Clinical Cardiology used to be a respected journal. It still has an impact factor (1.100). The publication was based in Toronto until it was sold in 2013 to, apparently, some Europeans. 

The journal has declined in quality, and I have its publisher, Cardiology Academic Press, on my list, though the press only publishes this one journal. It now claims to be based in Bern, Switzerland.

I’ve learned that the journal accepted a paper with no real peer review. The paper’s author received the following two emails, the first one reporting a positive review from one external reviewer, the second reporting a positive review from two others. No edits to the paper were suggested; the journal accepted the manuscript as submitted.

Dear Prof. [redacted],

We are pleased to inform you that your paper “[redacted]“, which you submitted to the journal “Experimental & Clinical Cardiology” has been approved from one of three reviewers.
In one week we will have final results from the other two independent reviewers.

You will be notified about final acceptance or decline of your paper soon.

If you have any questions or concerns we are at your disposal.

Sincerely,

Leonie Stein
Cardiology Academic Press
______________________________
Eigerstrasse 2, 3007 Bern, Switzerland
Website: www.cardiologyacademicpress.com
Email: stein@cardiologyacademicpress.com

The second email:

Dear Prof. [redacted],

Congratulations!

We are pleased to inform you that your paper “[redacted]” was accepted for publication in the Experimental & Clinical Cardiology journal.
Three independent reviewers have approved its content.

NEXT STEP: Payment
PAYMENT DEADLINE: [redacted], 2014

To proceed with following steps please make sure publication fee is payed, so your paper can be published.
It will be Indexed by Thomson Scientific ISI Web of Knowledge, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Scopus and PubMed Central.

The invoice for the Article Processing Charge for your paper can be found on your Author Panel page: [redacted]
Please fill in the information required. If necessary, you can also change or update the invoicing data.

The payment can be made by wire transfer: [redacted].
All necessary details regarding wire transfer can be found on the invoice.

For any assistance you might need, we remain at your disposal.

Sincerely,

Leonie Stein
Cardiology Academic Press
______________________________
Eigerstrasse 2, 3007 Bern, Switzerland
Website: www.cardiologyacademicpress.com
Email: stein@cardiologyacademicpress.com

The journal doesn’t currently even have an editorial board.

Can’t wait.

Now here’s a screenshot from the invoice the author received after his manuscript got accepted:

Your author fee is funneled to an offshore bank!

The author in this case found it strange that the payment ultimately would be directed to a bank in the Turks & Caicos Islands, a known tax haven.

Need to update the address.

The invoice (above) still uses the former publisher’s address in Toronto. This journal reportedly spams physicians, even those not specializing in cardiology. Their spam typically begin with this sentence:

So far Cardiology Academic Press has contacted you twice. Respecting your tight schedule, we would like to remind you of our ongoing yearly call for papers covering the most dynamic subjects in the areas of cardiology.

The journal’s cover states that it is the “journal of the International Association of Cardiovascular Sciences.” However, the “publications” page of this organization’s website makes no mention of this journal. At one time, the journal may have indeed been the group’s official organ, but in 2013 the journal was sold to its current owner, one who seems to be exploiting as fully as possible the fact that the journal has an impact factor.

Summary and Conclusions

A once-respected cardiology journal was sold to persons unknown who are now doing a fake peer review and directing revenue earned from article processing charges to be wired to a bank in the Turks & Caicos Islands, a tax haven. The owners purport to be based in Switzerland but still use the press’s former Toronto address on correspondence. The journal still has a valid impact factor, and the owners use pushy spam to attract articles.

I recommend against submitting papers to this journal.

Hat tip: [Redacted]

The NIH, PubMed, and OMICS Group logos.

OMICS Publishing Group’s journals are not included in NIH (National Institutes of Health) databases such as PubMed and PubMed Central, but OMICS may be working on a way to sneak into these prestigious databases.

It appears that OMICS’ strategy is to purchase journals that are already indexed in PubMed and add them to its journal portfolio. This may give it standing to start using PubMed and PubMed Central logos on its websites, despite a cease-and-desist order from the US Department of Health and Human Services last year demanding that OMICS stop using all NIH trademarked logos, including those for PubMed and Pubmed Central.

Many use inclusion in PubMed as a hallmark of quality and won’t submit articles to excluded journals. If OMICS can figure out a way to get permission to use PubMed logos it will likely get more article submissions and therefore revenue, for it exclusively uses the gold open-access model, in which authors pay fees upon acceptance of articles. More submissions mean more revenue.

Evidence

Here’s a PubMed-indexed journal that OMICS recently purchased:

The International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience

It appears OMICS purchased this title from Chevron Publishing Corporation in 2013, changing the title from the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health. The journal is found here on PubMed.

Also, OMICS is sending emails to editors and publishers of PubMed-indexed journals, making unsolicited offers to purchase them. Here is an example of one of these emails, with identifying information redacted:

The letter continues:

OMICS Publishing Group is always pushing the limits, trying to see what it can get away with, and its strategy to purchase PubMed-indexed journals is another example of that.

From OMICS’ website: The publisher uses other organizations’  brand value to make it appear legitimate.

Proceed with caution.

I have added the OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development to my list. Although sustainable development is noble and trendy, there’s nothing noble about this low-quality and highly-questionable journal. OIDA means Ontario International Development Agency.

Here are the reasons I’ve added the journal to the list:

1. The journal does not appear to have an established editorial board; none is listed on the website, nor is any Editor-in-Chief listed.

2. The journal gives authors the option to pay an extra fee ($230) and get a fast track review (15 days) on submitted papers. This fee is in addition to the normal article processing charge. It’s not clear who does the review, as there is no editorial board.

Pay, more, publish in two weeks!

3. All billing is done in US dollars, despite the organization’s location in Ontario. It appears the journal chiefly aims to trade on Ontario’s good name to attract article processing fees from abroad.

4. The organization does not publish the journal itself; all of its published papers are only available on the SSRN website.

Now a publisher.

Therefore, SSRN is playing the role of journal publisher. I thought SSRN was only a preprint server and disciplinary repository; I didn’t realize it also functioned as a scholarly publisher, its role in this case.

5. Examining recent articles in the journal, one sees that the vast majority are by authors based in India; there are also a few by authors based in Malaysia, South Africa, and Nigeria, but I saw none by Canadian authors.

6. The organization gives this as its contact address:

287 Second Avenue South
Sudbury, Ontario, P3B 4H6
Canada

However, looking at this address in Google Maps, one sees a dwelling, not an agency:

International agency headquarters?

7. The organization prominently refers to itself as a “Non Political and Non Religious Foundation,” yet there is no evidence that it is actually a foundation. It does not claim to be non-profit and may in fact be a for-profit entity. Also, the name of this organization seems to steal some legitimacy from the agency that was formerly called the Canadian International Development Agency and from the province itself.

8. The author guidelines contain this poorly-written statement:

Copyright Transfer: One of the authors of the manuscript should sign the copyrights of their manuscripts, and all open access articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

However, the published articles all bear this statement:

©Ontario International Development Agency.

The papers do not bear any Creative Commons licenses (but they are all available online through SSRN). The publisher requires that authors transfer copyright to OIDA [see this .doc copyright transfer form], which is non-standard in scholarly open-access publishing. In point of fact, the published articles are not distributed under the CC license, as no CC license is present on them.

Conclusion: The closer I examine this journal and its publisher, the less “sustainable” it appears. For additional income, the agency also organizes conferences, with 2014 meetings booked in South Africa and Canada. I would think long and hard before submitting any papers to this journal or before registering for one of its conferences.

Scopus says good-bye.

Life Science Journal has been prospectively delisted from Scopus.

I received a confirmation that Life Science Journal — published jointly by Marsland Press and Zhengzhou University — has been prospectively delisted from the Scopus database. The reasons for the delisting were not stated in the confirmation, but it’s easy to find problems with this journal.

This flower is wilting.

On its website, the journal claims to have an impact factor of 0.165, and this claim is confirmed; the journal’s 2012 impact factor is indeed 0.165. What will its 2013 impact factor be, when the new impact factor data is released soon?

The impact factor might explain this journal’s large number of issues and articles. Formerly a quarterly, the journal now publishes monthly, and it publishes many articles per issue.

Twelve fat issues per year…

The journal is currently publishing volume 11 (2014) [see above]. Volume 11 number 1 has 60 articles in it!

… plus twelve “special” issues per year.

Additionally, the journal is publishing 12 special issues in 2014, in addition to the 12 regular issues.

We’ve seen this before — a journal gets an impact factor and then goes crazy, accepting as many articles as possible to earn more money.

The article processing charge is $640.

The article processing charge per article is US $640. Somebody is making a lot of easy money here. Also, judging from the articles, no copyediting is being done, as it appears the articles are being published as they are received.

Hat tip: Dr. Daniyar Sapargaliyev

Magic potion?

I am writing this blog post in hopes of starting a conversation in the scientific community about the medicine called GcMAF and one of the companies that is currently distributing it, a company called GcMAF.eu

GcMAF means “Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor,” according to the short article about it on Wikipedia. The drug is currently being marketed as a cure for many ailments, including cancer, autism, MS and Parkinson’s disease.

I am concerned about this drug and its marketing for these reasons:

1. Apparently, some of the same people who are researching the drug also are involved in marketing and selling it.

2. Some (not all) of their research has been published in questionable journals, including one published by a publisher that is on my list.

3. The drug is not approved by any competent authority (FDA, EMA) to treat any disease.

The following three articles report favorably on GcMAF and appear in the American Journal of Immunology a journal published by Science Publications, a publisher on my list. The three articles are:

1. Thyer, L., Ward, E., Smith, R., Branca, J. J. V., Morucci, G., Gulisano, M., Noakes, D. & Pacini, S. (2013). Therapeutic effects of highly purified de-glycosylated GcMAF in the immunotherapy of patients with chronic diseases. American Journal of Immunology, 9(3), 78-84.
2. Smith, R., Thyer, L., Ward, E., Meacci, E., Branca, J. J. V., Morucci, G., Gulisano, M. R., Ruggiero, M., Pacini, A, Paternostro, F., Di Cesare Mannelli, L., Noakes, D. J., & Pacini, S. (2013). Effects of Gc-macrophage activating factor in human neurons; implications for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. American Journal of Immunology, 9(4), 120-129.
3. Ward, E., Smith, R., Branca, J. J. V., Noakes, D., Morucci, G., & Thyer, L. (2014). Clinical Experience of Cancer Immunotherapy Integrated with Oleic Acid Complexed with De-Glycosylated Vitamin D Binding Protein. American Journal of Immunology, 10(1), 23-32.

The first and the third articles report the authors’ experience with patients treated at the Immuno Biotech Treatment Center.   From their website one sees that the cost is €6,000 a week for the center, and their hotel cost estimate is €1,800.  This price is significantly higher than the €600 they charge for the GcMAF ampule alone. These patients have been an important source of revenue for this company.

As far as I can tell, none of the authors discloses affiliation to this center, so it is not clear who treated the patients. Moreover, there is no other information on this treatment center than the information on these articles and the website of this company. Thus it is rather strange that patients have to have a separate budget for their accommodation, which means there are being treated as outpatients. What is the point on making them travel to receive a treatment that could be given on an outpatient basis by one of the 350 doctors around the world claimed to be using GcMAF?

If the cure is so great, why publish your findings in such a low-quality journal?

The publisher of the journal, Science Publications, lists two addresses on its “Contact Us” page, one in Adelaide, SA, Australia and one in New York, NY, USA. I think both addresses are really those of mail-forwarding services and the publisher is hiding its true location, which remains unknown.

Why are these scientists publishing their work in a highly questionable journal operated by a non-transparent publisher? If the work is so groundbreaking (a cure for cancer, et al.), why not publish it in a legitimate journal where its impact would be greater, its conclusions more convincing?

Do any of the authors have any declarable conflicts of interest? If so, what are they? Where can I find them?

On the GcMAF.eu website, the site of the company that sells the potion, under the “Who we are” link, it says this:

We are a group of scientists led by Professor Marco Ruggiero MD, a molecular biologist and fully qualified medical doctor. The team includes a PhD and two BSc biomedical scientists. External doctors, oncologists and scientists kindly provide help and advice. We are committed to bringing GcMAF and its associated treatments to as many people as we can.

Ruggiero is listed as one of the authors of one of the articles above, so I assume the other authors are part of his team and are associated with the company GcMAF.eu.

One of the first scientists to research GcMAF was Nobuto Yamamoto, but his 2007 article on the compound was retracted.

Regarding pricing, the company’s website states

Our GcMAF is €600, plus €60 packing and shipping, for one 2.2ml vial. A vial is one third full and contains up to eight doses – one 100ng, 0.25ml dose a week.

I found the overall tone of the GcMAF website to be mean and self-righteous. It makes a lot of claims such as “Root canals are a major cause of the immune system being suppressed and they are a major cause of cancer.”

Is the published science behind GcMAF authentic, honest, and real? I ask that the bio-medical sciences community investigate this compound, the science behind it, and its marketing.

Coda: A good analysis of GcMAF is available from the Anticancer Fund here.

A chart showing happiness levels by country, generated from a meta-analysis (public domain).

“Meta-analysis refers to the application of quantitative methods to the problem of combining results from different analytic studies” [1].

But what happens when some misconduct occurs, and the same study is published twice?

According to a Choi, et al.,

“With the increasing use of meta-analysis, duplicate publication of original research is particularly problematic. Duplicate publication can result in an inappropriate weighting of the study results” [2].

Here [below] is a case of apparent duplicate publication that I was alerted to recently. Both articles appeared at about the same time — the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014. Each article has six authors. Four authors are common to both articles, and each article also has two authors that only appear on that one article.

One might argue that this is not duplicate publication but plagiarism, because the authors are different.

The first article is “Sleep Organisation in Depression and Schizophrenia: Index of Endogenous Periodicity of Sleep as a State Marker:”

The first of two nearly identical articles.

The second article is “Polysomnographic Sleep Patterns in Depressive, Schizophrenic and Healthy Subjects:”

The second of two nearly identical articles.

Although the titles differ, the text in the two articles is mostly the same. As far as I know these two articles haven’t been used in any meta-analyses. Both are published open-access.

In cases like these, the publishers can be victims of the authors submitting papers to multiple journals at once. Plagiarism checks come up negative because the plagiarism database has not yet been populated with the article’s text.

I agree with Choi, et. al. and think that the increasing amount of duplicate publication/plagiarism may threaten the validity of meta-analyses. Because it is so easy to get published in predatory journals, they may contain more duplicated and plagiarized articles, compounding the problem.

[1]. Wachter, K. L. and Straf, M. L. (1990). Introduction. In: The future of meta-analysis. Wachter, K. L. and Straf, M. L. (Eds.). New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990. p. xiii.

[2]. Duplicate publication of articles used in meta-analysis in Korea. Whan-Seok Choi, Sang-Wook Song, Sun-Myeong Ock, Chul-Min Kim, JungBok Lee, Woo-Jin Chang, Se-Hong Kim. Springerplus. 2014; 3: 182. doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-182

This publisher will publish almost anything.

Scientific Research Publishing has published many articles by controversial researcher Mohamed El Naschie and his band of followers.

Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) says it has offices in China and Southern California, and like many questionable open-access publishers, it is registered in Delaware (and I wonder if the firm reports its income to the IRS).

This publisher has been on my list for a long time, and I recently described a case in which a controversial article about the Fukushima nuclear fallout was published in one of its many journals.

M. El Naschie is listed as the sole author on at least twenty articles in SCIRP journals. In my opinion, they are all nonsense and pseudo-science. El Naschie has reportedly been blacklisted from arXive, prohibited from posting preprints there.

Claimed Discovery of the Nature of Dark Energy

Lots of dark energy, all right.

There are also many articles in SCIRP journals written by followers of El Naschie. These articles, like the one pictured here, typically report again on El Naschie’s findings. The one shown in the screenshot above reports on the “discovery” of the nature of dark energy. If such a discovery had truly been made, it would have been one of the major scientific discoveries of all time.

The nature of this published content is particularly surprising, given that H. Barry Zhou, the founder of Scientific Research Publishing, holds a Ph.D. in Space Plasma Physics from the University of Maryland at College Park. Why would someone with such credentials allow the publication of so many questionable articles claiming to have discovered the nature of dark energy and other such discoveries not accepted by the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists?

Dr. Zhou, are you proud of publishing scholarly articles that fall way outside mainstream science? Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) has become a scholarly vanity press, in my opinion.

I am aware that El Naschie was the editor-in-chief of an Elsevier journal in the past. However, scientists protested, and his editorship was ended. I think additional, similar action is needed in this case.

In conclusion, if you want your work to appear in journals from a scientific press that has published many of the questionable scientific works of Mohamed El Naschie and his followers, then Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) is the publisher to select.

Appendix: I’ve included a list of some of Mohamed El Naschie’s articles published in SCIRP journals below.

• A Fractal Menger Sponge Space-Time Proposal to Reconcile Measurements and Theoretical Predictions of Cosmic Dark Energy
• A Resolution of Cosmic Dark Energy via a Quantum Entanglement Relativity Theory
• A Rindler-KAM Spacetime Geometry and Scaling the Planck Scale Solves Quantum Relativity and Explains Dark Energy
• A Unified Newtonian-Relativistic Quantum Resolution of the Supposedly Missing Dark Energy of the Cosmos and the Constancy of the Speed of Light
• Calculating the Exact Experimental Density of the Dark Energy in the Cosmos Assuming a Fractal Speed of Light
• Capillary Surface Energy Elucidation of the Cosmic Dark Energy—Ordinary Energy Duality
• Cosmic Dark Energy from ‘t Hooft’s Dimensional Regularization and Witten’s Topological Quantum Field Pure Gravity
• Dark Energy from Kaluza-Klein Spacetime and Noether’s Theorem via Lagrangian Multiplier Method
• Einstein’s General Relativity and Pure Gravity in a Cosserat and De Sitter-Witten Spacetime Setting as the Explanation of Dark Energy and Cosmic Accelerated Expansion
• Entanglement of E8E8 Exceptional Lie Symmetry Group Dark Energy, Einstein’s Maximal Total Energy and the Hartle-Hawking No Boundary Proposal as the Explanation for Dark Energy
• From Chern-Simon, Holography and Scale Relativity to Dark Energy
• From Yang-Mills Photon in Curved Spacetime to Dark Energy Density
• Nash Embedding of Witten’s M-Theory and the Hawking-Hartle Quantum Wave of Dark Energy
• Pinched Material Einstein Space-Time Produces Accelerated Cosmic Expansion
• Quantum Entanglement as a Consequence of a Cantorian Micro Spacetime Geometry
• Quantum Entanglement: Where Dark Energy and Negative Gravity plus Accelerated Expansion of the Universe Comes from
• The Hydrogen Atom Fractal Spectra, the Missing Dark Energy of the Cosmos and Their Hardy Quantum Entanglement
• The hyperbolic Extension of Sigalotti-Hendi-Sharifzadeh’s Golden Triangle of Special Theory of Relativity and the Nature of Dark Energy
• The Meta Energy of Dark Energy
• The Missing Dark Energy of the Cosmos from Light Cone Topological Velocity and Scaling of the Planck Scale
• Topological-Geometrical and Physical Interpretation of the Dark Energy of the Cosmos as a “Halo” Energy of the Schrödinger Quantum Wave
• What Is the Missing Dark Energy in a Nutshell and the Hawking-Hartle Quantum Wave Collapse
• Why E Is Not Equal to mc2

Thinning ethics.

OMICS Publishing Group is one of the most prolific, abusive, and annoying spammers. Here we give an example of an email exchange sparked by one of OMICS’ spam emails soliciting articles for a special issue of its journal Hair: Therapy & Transplantation. The special issue is to be entitled Alopecia Areata.

The spam email is signed by two people. One of them is a prominent professor (whose name has been redacted), and the other is “Angelina,” one of OMICS’ “editorial assistants.” The name is likely contrived. No email address was given for the professor.

The second email below is from the researcher who received the email. He found the email address of the professor whose name was on the email and responded to him directly. The researcher points out that the mail is inappropriate for him because he is an ophthalmic surgeon with no experience in alopecia, despite the spam email’s praise of his work in the field.

The final email below is a response from the daughter of the special issue’s purported editor, writing on his behalf. She indicates that her father is ill and that she has already written to OMICS informing them that her father cannot contribute to the journal. [PDF version of the spam emails]

Original spam email:

From: Editor-htt [mailto:editor.htt@omicsonline.net]
Sent: 23 July 2014 15:38
To: [redacted]
Subject: Article Invitation for Special Issue: Alopecia Areata

Hair: Therapy & Transplantation
Dear Dr. [redacted],
Due to your many valuable contributions and significant expertise in the field, we would like to invite you to contribute articles addressing the Special Issue “Alopecia Areata” in 2014. Your enthusiasm and participation will greatly contribute to this special issue in 2014. We believe that this issue can be a significant milestone and hope that you are willing to contribute.

Special Issue: 2014
Alopecia Areata: Diagnosis, Pathogenesis and Treatment
Edited By [redacted]
Head of Trichology Division
[redacted]

For more details on Special Issues please visit http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/specialissueHTT.php
We are glad to invite you to submit Research article/Review article/Case Reports/Image Articles/Special Issue articles for our prestigious journal, Hair: Therapy & Transplantation. Your contribution is of great importance for us and it will help to establish its high standards.

If you have manuscript ready to publish you may submit now, so that we will finish review process quickly, please let us know your feasible time to contribute.

The deadline for submissions is 10th August 2014 or you send us your possible date of submission. The target publishing date is 28th August 2014.
You may submit your paper by e-mail at editor.htt@omicsonline.com (or) online at http://www.editorialmanager.com/medicaljournals

Special features to articles published in the Hair: Therapy & Transplantation include
• Timely dissemination of your research work
• Free PDF/Digital file of your published paper
• No restriction for use/distribution
• Create great looking digital files for distribution
• Sharing you published work in social networking like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, etc.
• Translation of published paper to more than 50 languages
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter & I wish you a fantastic week full of joy, health and happiness.
We are looking forward to hear from you soon!

With kind regards,
[redacted]
Head of Trichology Division
[redacted]
Editorial Office
Angelina
E-mail: editor.htt@omicsonline.com

Email from the recipient of the spam email to the researcher improperly listed as the special issue’s purported editor:

–Allegato al messaggio inoltrato–
From: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Subject: RE: Article Invitation for Special Issue: Alopecia Areata
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 19:28:05 +0300
Dear prof. [redacted],

I wish good success to your special issue, but I fail to understand what makes you believe that I have done “many valuable contributions” and shown “significant expertise” that would qualify me as an author in the exciting field of alopecia, given that I am an ophthalmic surgeon.

Best regards,

[redacted]

Email from the daughter of the researcher improperly listed as the special issue’s purported editor:

From: [redacted]
Sent: 26 July 2014 15:51
To: [redacted]
Subject: FW: I: RE: Article Invitation for Special Issue: Alopecia Areata

Dear [redacted],

Thanks for your email to my father, Prof. [redacted]. unfortunately my father is not well and I personally wrote to the below person advising that he will not be able to contribute. They are clearly using my father’s name to write to other potential contributors, without even doing the appropriate checks. Please accept my apologies, but my father was not involved in the below. I will write a new email to them. Kind regards,

[Redacted]

So, what are the takeaways from this email exchange? I think we can conclude …

1. OMICS sends out spam emails signed by prominent researchers who are not aware that their names are being used.

2. Topics for OMICS’ special issues are not developed by the editors-in-chief or by the editorial boards but by the publisher itself.

3. OMICS’ spam email is sometimes misdirected, targeting researchers in disciplines unrelated to the spamming journal’s scope.

4. OMICS Publishing Group exploits researchers’ names and affiliations for its own profit.

I also think that OMICS should mention the article processing fees it charges in every spam email it sends out. Time and time again, I have received emails from scholars who have submitted papers in response to spam emails such as the one above only to have them quickly accepted — and followed by an invoice received several days later.

Hat tip: Dr. Tero Kivelä

Throwing money around?

The publisher Spring-City Culture International Group is making some interesting appeals to authors and editors — appeals that seem to promise financial rewards.

Spring-City has offices in Singapore, Beijing, and Hong Kong. This new scholarly open-access publisher came to my attention recently thanks to several researchers who forwarded copies of Spring-City spam emails to me.

Financial Rewards for Authors

What does “appreciated” mean exactly, in this context?

The image above is a screenshot from one of the spam emails inviting article submissions. It says, “The author will receive 1,000-10,000 dollars when his/her paper is appreciated by our reviewers.” I am not sure what “appreciated” means here — this is a vague use of this term. In any event, I think promising authors the possibility of a financial award to attract article submissions is likely unethical.

Financial Rewards for Editors

Interesting business model.

One of the spam emails that was forwarded to me was a solicitation to be an editor-in-chief for one of the Spring-City journals. A document attached to the spam made some amazing promises for editors. The document is called “Rights and Responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief.”

A portion of the document is shown above. It says,

The editor-in-chief has rights to: Obtain 2,000 dollars per month as his / her allowance; Publish the articles written by himself / herself (or he/ she as the first author), and receive 1,000-10,000 dollars as remuneration for each article according to its quality.

This is a pretty amazing promise. I wonder if they need an editor for a library science journal?

Actually, I don’t believe a word of it. I’ve added Spring City to my list and recommend against serving as the EiC or on the editorial boards of Spring City journals and against submitting papers to its ten journals.

Appendix: Spring-City Culture International Group journals as of August 9, 2014

[Update: 2014-08-13: These journals have all disappeared and been replaced by different titles.]

1. Economy and Trade Theory Anailsis [sic]
2. Electronics Science Technology and Application
3. Financial Forum
4. International Journal of Social Security
5. Journal of Atmosphere and Oceanography Environment
6. Journal of Monsoon and Air-Sea
7. Journal of Satellite Oceanography and Meteorology
8. Nature•Science•Human
9. Preventive Medicine Research
10. Proceedings of Social Medicine

Micro experience.

MacroWorld is a new scholarly publisher based in Izmir, Turkey. It is notable for making contradictory statements — indicating a total lack of understanding — regarding its copyright and open-access policies.

The publisher has launched with 18 journals, most all of them in disciplines already covered by many other scholarly journals.

Contradictions Regarding Copyright

The publisher states that authors retain copyright of all research articles it publishes, but then in another place on its website, it has a copyright agreement that submitting authors must agree to. An author cannot retain copyright and transfer it at the same time.

The two screenshots below show the contradicting policies. The first says authors retain copyright, and the second says authors must transfer copyright to the publisher.

• Copyright retained by authors
• Copyright agreement

Now you do …

… now you don’t.

Contradictions Regarding Publishing Models

Next, the publisher seems confused as to whether it is a subscription publisher or whether it is an open-access publisher.

Fully open-access? Really?

In the screenshot above, taken from this page, the publisher declares, “MacroWorld Open Access (OA) is a program of fully open access journals” [emphasis added]. (It also says that OA increases article citations by 300%, and I would love to see the source of that data). Later on the same page the publisher declares, “All research articles published in MacroWorld Open Access journals are immediately freely available to read, download and share.”

At the same time, the publisher presents itself as a subscription publisher, one that also sells articles individually. On this page, the publisher lists its subscription prices. I know that some OA publishers offer free online content but charge for print subscriptions, but it appears that MacroWorld charges for access regardless of format:

This is not what open-access looks like.

The pay-per-view price appears to be ten euros:

They accept credit cards.

This is a new publisher, and some of the journals don’t have editors-in-chief yet or editorial board members, yet they are all accepting manuscripts.

This is a very confused publisher. It appears to be trying to please everyone all the time. I have added it to my list. If they are so confused about copyright and publishing models, they are likely confused about other things as well, such as peer review, digital preservation, and the like. I say don’t risk submitting your work to this publisher.

Hat tip: Dr. Hamid Abdollahyan

Appendix: List of MacroWorld journals as of 2014-08-10:

1. International Journal of Green Computing and Sustainability
2. International Journal of Multilingual Translations and Information Communication Technology
3. International Journal of Public Private Partnerships
4. Journal of African Business Research
5. Journal of American Studies Eurasian Perspective
6. Journal of City, Culture and Architecture
7. Journal of Computer Games and Communication
8. Journal of Critical Photography Studies
9. Journal of Educational Policies and Current Practices
10. Journal of Eurasian Film Studies
11. Journal of European Folklore Research
12. Journal of Game-Supported Interactive Learning
13. Journal of Information and Audiovisual Policy
14. Journal of Islamic Perspective and Culture
15. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Communication
16. Journal of Social Media Studies
17. Journal of Space and Communication
18. Journal of Traditional Art & Folk Studies

Crazy name, crazy publisher.

We recently learned about the scholarly open-access publisher called Researchjournali. It launched with 24 broad journals and is based in Odisha, India. It promises an “editorial decision” in seven days, and authors get to suggest their own peer reviewers.

The publisher’s name is pronounced “Research Journal Eye.” Pretty clever, no? Kind of like Ipod, only for journals, and the “I” is at the end. The publisher has trademarked the name, which is good because I am sure many would want to copy it, it’s so clever.

As we stated, its journals all have a broad scope. One of them is Journal of Education, for example, which is excellent, because the education field really needed another open-access, broad-scoped journal.

In fact, the Journal of Education is this publisher’s top journal. It has the highest RJ factor, and this is a metric created and assigned by this very same publisher.

Equal to the impact factor, no?

The publisher’s website explains the metric:

RJ Factor is a unique index for ranking academic journals published by us in various disciplines. This is an algorithm that assigns score in the range of 0 to 8 to research journals and it is calculated based on available data and other statistics from different sources. RJ factor is used by institutions, librarians and researchers to rank our journals and this is equivalent to other available measures often used for ranking of scholarly journals

In other words, the numbers are just made up, and their purpose is to trick naïve researchers into thinking they are submitting their work to legitimate journals.

Perhaps the only really redeeming thing about this publisher is the hilarious advertising video they have produced and uploaded to YouTube. It features an American actor reading a script written in Indian dialect English. I found it funny and also pitifully sad.

Appendix: Researchjournali journals as of 2014-08-13:

1. Journal of Accounting
2. Journal of Advertising
3. Journal of Agriculture
4. Journal of Business Ethics
5. Journal of Commerce
6. Journal of Computer Science
7. Journal of Economics
8. Journal of Education
9. Journal of Entrepreneurship
10. Journal of Finance
11. Journal of Geography
12. Journal of History
13. Journal of Hospitality Tourism
14. Journal of Human Resource
15. Journal of Information Technology
16. Journal of Management
17. Journal of Marketing
18. Journal of Mathematics
19. Journal of Media Studies
20. Journal of Public Policy
21. Journal of Sociology
22. Journal of Sports Management
23. Journal of Supply Chain Management
24. Journal of Technology Management

International Journal of Junk.

I am trying to understand what’s going on with the International Journal of Scientific Research (IJScR). It claims to be published by the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) in Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi.

The journal’s ISSN number is 1832-1011. Searching this number in WorldCat, one retrieves a bibliographic record for a journal with the similar title International Journal of Science & Research.

Here is a screenshot of the record:

What’s the connection, exactly?

As you see, the ISSN matches, but little else does. Has the journal’s title been changed and its ownership transferred from the International Research Association in Australia to the United Arab Emirates University? Has it been hijacked? The journal’s website doesn’t answer these questions.

Seeking clarification, I sent an email to Ghalia Alahbabi, the University’s Head of Media Communication but received no reply. Then I emailed the Dean of the University’s library, Prof. Hassan Al Naboodah, but he merely referred my inquiry to a subordinate who gave me a response that indicated he didn’t understand my question.

The current issue of the journal contains the article “Mystical Discussion in poetry of contemporary poets of Azerbaijan” By Aliakbar Radpoor and Almaz Aligizi, which doesn’t seem to be “scientific research” to me. Also, it’s easy to find plagiarism in the articles, and it’s clear that no copyediting has been done in most of them.

Thomson Reuters “Master” list.

Further complicating this, the journal is included in the Thomson Reuters Master List, a listing that seems to confirm that the United Arab Emirates University is the publisher. But this list, despite being used by many as an indicator of journal quality, has been polluted with data from hijacked journals recently. I find the list unreliable.

In the end, it doesn’t matter who the publisher of the International Journal of Scientific Research is. It’s a horrible journal, and serious scholars should not submit their work to it.

Sprinting to nowhere.

We recently learned about a new open-access publisher called Sprint Journals. The publisher has launched with 107 new, scholarly open-access journals — or more precisely — it is in the process of launching, for the website is incomplete, with mostly dead links.

We heard about this new publisher from a poorly-written spam email  a researcher received and forwarded. Note that in the “From” line the text “Elsevier/Sprint Journals Publisher” appears. The publisher is pretending to be associated with Elsevier:

Faking an association with Elsevier.

The spam email confuses the singular and the plural and uses flowery language to describe the publisher’s mission.

The SPRINT JOURNALS is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that will be published monthly by SPRINT JOURNALS, http://www.sprintjournals.com). SJ is dedicated to increasing the depth of the subject across disciplines with the ultimate aim of expanding knowledge of the subject.

A copy of the full email is here. It is signed by Rex Hammond, a name I think is made up.

We also noticed other attempts to link Sprint Journals with Elsevier, chiefly through images. For example, the following image appears as one of a series of rotating images on the site:

Is there a vaccine for predatory publishers?

The image contains the Elsevier logo. I don’t think Sprint Journals has any legitimate connection with Elsevier.

More subterfuge.

This rotating image also appears on the site at this time, but I don’t see a journal with this title among the publisher’s fleet of journals.

Most of the links to the publisher’s 107 journals are dead. However, nine of them are live and include published articles in them. The publisher does not state its location. However, most of the articles’ authors are from Nigeria, so if I had to guess the location of this publisher, it would be there.

As I mentioned, among the 107 journals, only nine currently have active hyperlinks to their own web pages. This means that much spamming remains to be carried out when the remaining journal pages are created. Watch your inbox for deceptive spam emails from Sprint Journals.

Appendix: Sprint Journals as of 2014-08-21

1. Sprint Journal of Accounting and Taxation (SPRJAT)
2. Sprint Journal of Agricultural Biotechnology and Sustainable Development (SPRJABSD)
3. Sprint Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development (SPRJAERD)
4. Sprint Journal of Agricultural Research (SPRJAR)
5. Sprint Journal of Agricultural SCIENCE (SPRJAS)
6. Sprint Journal of AIDS and HIV Research (SPRJAHR)
7. Sprint Journal of Bacteriology Research (SPRJBR)
8. Sprint Journal of Biochemistry Research (SPRJBR)
9. Sprint Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation (SPRJBC)
10. Sprint Journal of Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis (SPRJBSA)
11. Sprint Journal of Biophysics and Structural Biology (SPRJBSB)
12. Sprint Journal of Biotechnology (SPRJBT)
13. Sprint Journal of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology Research (SPRJBMBR)
14. Sprint Journal of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology Reviews (SPRJBMBR)
15. Sprint Journal of Brewing and Distilling (SPRJBD)
16. Sprint Journal of Business Management (SPRJBMGT)
17. Sprint Journal of Cancer Research and Experimental Oncology (SPRJCREO)
18. Sprint Journal of Cell and Animal Biology (SPRJCAB)
19. Sprint Journal of Cell Biology and Genetics (SPRJCBG)
20. Sprint Journal of Cereals and Oilseeds (SPRJCO)
21. Sprint Journal of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (SPRJCEMS)
22. Sprint Journal of Civil Engineering and Construction Technology (SPRJCECT)
23. Sprint Journal of Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology Research (SPRJCIIR)
24. Sprint Journal of Clinical Medicine and Research (SPRJCMR)
25. Sprint Journal of Clinical Pathology and Forensic Medicine (SPRJCPFM)
26. Sprint Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research (SPRJCBBR)
27. Sprint Journal of Computer Engineering Research (SPRJCER)
28. Sprint Journal of Dentistry and Oral Hygiene (SPRJDOH)
29. Sprint Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics (SPRJDAE)
30. Sprint Journal of Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering (SPRJDBTE)
31. Sprint Journal of Diabetes and Endocrinology (SPRJBE)
32. Sprint Journal of Ecology and the Natural Environment (SPRJENE)
33. Sprint Journal of Economics and International Finance (SPRJEIF)
34. Sprint Journal of Educational Administration and Policy Studies (SPRJEAPS)
35. Sprint Journal of Educational Research and Reviews (SPRJERR)
36. Sprint Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Research (SPRJEEER)
37. Sprint Journal of Engineering and Computer Innovations (SPRJECI)
38. Sprint Journal of Engineering and Technology Research (SPRJETR)
39. Sprint Journal of English and Literature (SPRJEL)
40. Sprint Journal of Entomology and Nematology (SPRJEN)
41. Sprint Journal of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology (SPRJECE)
42. Sprint Journal of Environmental Science and Technology (SPRJEST)
43. Sprint Journal of Evolutionary Biology Research (SPRJEBR)
44. Sprint Journal of Fine and Studio Art (SPRJFSA)
45. Sprint Journal of Fisheries and Aquaculture (SPRJFA)
46. Sprint Journal of Food Science (SPRJFS)
47. Sprint Journal of General and Molecular Virology (SPRJGMV)
48. Sprint Journal of Genetics and Molecular Biology (SPRJGM)
49. Sprint Journal of Geography and Regional Planning (SPRJGRP)
50. Sprint Journal of Geology and Mining Research (SPRJGMR)
51. Sprint Journal of History and Culture (SPRJHC)
52. Sprint Journal of Horticulture and Forestry (SPRJHF)
53. Sprint Journal of Hospitality Management and Tourism (SPRJHMT)
54. Sprint Journal of Infectious Diseases and Immunity (SPRJIDI)
55. Sprint Journal of Internet and Information Systems (SPRJIIS)
56. Sprint Journal of Languages and Culture (SPRJLC)
57. Sprint Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution (SPRJLCR)
58. Sprint Journal of Library and Information Science (SPRJLIS)
59. Sprint Journal of Livestock Production (SPRJLP)
60. Sprint Journal of Marketing Management (SPRJMM)
61. Sprint Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science Research (SPRJMPCCR)
62. Sprint Journal of Mechanical Engineering Research (SPRJMER)
63. Sprint Journal of Media and Communication Studies (SPRJMCS)
64. Sprint Journal of Medical Genetics and Genomics (SPRJMGG)
65. Sprint Journal of Medical Laboratory and Diagnosis (SPRJMLD)
66. Sprint Journal of Medicinal Plants Research (SPRJMPR)
67. Sprint Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (SPRJMMS)
68. Sprint Journal of Metabolomics and Systems Biology (SPRJMSB)
69. Sprint Journal of Microbiology and Antimicrobials (SPRJMA)
70. Sprint Journal of Microbiology Research (SPRJMR)
71. Sprint Journal of Music and Dance (SPRJMD)
72. Sprint Journal of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health (SPRJNBH)
73. Sprint Journal of Nursing and Midwifery (SPRJNW)
74. Sprint Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism (SPRJNM)
75. Sprint Journal of Oceanography and Marine Science (SPRJOMS)
76. Sprint Journal of Parasitology and Vector Biology (SPRJPVB)
77. Sprint Journal of Peace and Development Studies (SPRJPDS)
78. Sprint Journal of Petroleum and Gas Engineering (SPRJPGE)
79. Sprint Journal of Petroleum Technology and Alternative Fuels (SPRJPTAF)
80. Sprint Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy (SPRJPPH)
81. Sprint Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology (SPRJPP)
82. Sprint Journal of Philosophical Papers and Review (SPRJPPR)
83. Sprint Journal of Physical Education and Sport Management (SPRJPESM)
84. Sprint Journal of Physical Sciences (SPRJPS)
85. Sprint Journal of Physiology and Pathophysiology (SPRJPPT)
86. Sprint Journal of Plant Breeding and Crop Science (SPRJPBCS)
87. Sprint Journal of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (SPRJPPB)
88. Sprint Journal of Plant Science (SPRJPS)
89. Sprint Journal of Political Science and International Relations (SPRJPSIR)
90. Sprint Journal of Psychology and Counselling (SPRJPC)
91. Sprint Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research (SPRJPAPR)
92. Sprint Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology (SPRJPHE)
93. Sprint Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry (SPRJPAC)
94. Sprint Journal of Science and Technology Education Research (SPRJSTER)
95. Sprint Journal of Sociology and Anthropology (SPRJSA)
96. Sprint Journal of Soil Science and Environmental Management (SPRJSSEM)
97. Sprint Journal of Stored Products and Postharvest Research (SPRJSPPR)
98. Sprint Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences Clinical Reviews and Opinions (SPRJTEHSCRO)
99. Sprint Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health (SPRJVMAH)
100. Sprint Journal of Vocational and Technical Education (SPRJVTE)
101. Sprint Journal of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering (SPRJWREE)
102. Sprint Journal of Yeast and Fungal Research (SPRJYFR)
103. Sprint Medical Case Studies (SPRJMCS)
104. Sprint Medical Practice and Reviews (SPRJMPR)
105. Sprint NGO Journal (SPRNJ)
106. Sprint Research in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (SPRRPB)
107. Sprint Scientific Research and Essays (SPRSRE)

Avoid at all costs.

The predatory publisher WASET (World Association of Science, Engineering and Technology) is organizing a conference using the exact same name as a legitimate conference on the same topic, a conference sponsored by a small and authentic scholarly society.

• Bogus conference = http://www.waset.org/conference/2014/06/copenhagen/ICEDM
• Legitimate conference = http://educationaldatamining.org/EDM2015/

Both conferences are called International Conference on Educational Data Mining. The legitimate conference is organized by the International Educational Data Mining Society.

The legitimate conference.

The registration fee for the bogus conference is €500, but the registration fee for the legitimate conference is not yet announced.

An email sent by International Educational Data Mining Society president Ryan Baker warns society members about the WASET copycat event.

The email points out that the 2014 bogus educational data mining conference included paper presentations that were way off topic. The email states,

In 2014, this conference included EDM-themed papers such as “Automotive Supply Chain Flexibility” and “Energy Saving Potential with Improved Concrete in Ice Rink Floor Designs.”

It is clear from looking at WASET‘s homepage that it offers dozens of conferences to researchers every year. It regularly holds numerous conferences at the same time in the same city. It easily and routinely accepts papers regardless of whether they match the conference topic, and many are of very low quality.

WASET conferences provide a way for researchers to get university-paid vacations in interesting cities, along with easy acceptance of conference papers and subsequent easy acceptance of journal article submissions.

I strongly recommend that scholars avoid WASET conferences and that they also avoid submitting papers to WASET journals.