Want to join the club ?

Competition among open-access publishers is getting stronger and stronger. To survive, these publishers must invent new ways to stand out and attract more author fees from researchers. Journals Club & Co., based in the Indian state of Gujarat, markets each of its ten journals as a club, and it also promises to help promote its authors’ research and improve their metrics.

The publisher is typical of one-man predatory publishing operations in India. The site was likely set up in a day, and it is geared towards authors who want to get a quick and easy publication.

Senseless verbiage.

Here are some of the reasons I think researchers should avoid this publisher:

• It has a single editorial board for all ten journals
• The journals (which it calls sub journals) are all broad in scope
• It is not really open-access; when a reader clicks to download an article, the site asks for his name (by definition, open-access should not require any type of registration)
• The text throughout the website is filled with errors, poorly edited, and unsophisticated
• The website owner trolls social media promoting his “Clubs” and tries to attract article submissions by claiming he can help authors’ increase their h-index values and other metrics

A dubious claim: publish here and your metrics will increase (from LinkedIn).

• The publisher uses false and boastful language to promote itself. It says,

The “Journals Club & Co.” Is one of the leading publishers in the field of publication where authors are able to publish their manuscript in the respective open access, peer reviewed journals which are further classified according to their subjects.”

• The publisher requires that authors transfer copyright (this is non-standard for gold open-access)

Journal Club & Co. is  one of many extremely low-quality open-access publishing companies that are appearing in countries all over the world. I have over 500 publishers on my list now, and there is no end in sight to this problem.

Appendix: Journals Club & Co. journals as of 2014-08-28:

1. Journal Club for Applied Sciences (JCAS)
2. Journal Club for Chemical Engineering (JCCHE)
3. Journal Club for Civil Engineering (JCCE)
4. Journal Club for Computer Engineering (JCCOE)
5. Journal Club for Electrical Engineering (JCEE)
6. Journal Club for Electronics & Communication Engineering (JCECE)
7. Journal Club for Information Technology (JCIT)
8. Journal Club for Management Studies (JCMS)
9. Journal Club for Mechanical Engineering (JCME)
10. Journal Club for Pharmaceutical Sciences (JCPS)

Worst of the worst …

ClinMed International Library is an open-access publisher of 16 medical journals. This publisher stands out for the extremely poor use of language on its website and in its spam email. It appears the publisher uses automated translation software to translate its website content into English.

A researcher forwarded one of ClinMed’s spam emails to me, and it begins, “Deliberate greets from International Journal of Stem cell Research & Therapy…”

I have never heard the term “Deliberate greets” before.

Deliberate greets ?

A full copy of the email is here [PDF].  The message is signed by “Allison Zoey,” a name I believe is made up. The email gives Lewes, Delaware as the headquarters address, but the website says the address (and company name) is this:

Science Resource Online LLC
113 Barksdale Professional Center
Newark, DE 19711, USA

(“DE” is the abbreviation for the U.S state of Delaware).

Many predatory publishers are “based” in Delaware.

Delaware is a small state that has low corporate tax rates. There are services based in Delaware that arrange fast and easy online incorporation for businesses, including publishers. Accordingly, many predatory publishers have registered their businesses via the internet to make it look like they are based in the United States, a strategy that may help increase their revenue.

I don’t know ClinMed’s real headquarters location.

The firm’s FAQ page is a hilarious read, if you need a good laugh. Here’s a selection:

Q. What is the benefit you pave for my article publication and how it could be a beneficiary approach to me?

A. Soulful benefit service allows all editorial office works to follow the norms once article is accepted by CMIL. Article is published in e-form with apt PDF accepted by copyright license free for readers at any part of the world.

Q. A time frame has detained me to lose my paper ID. How do I get it?

A. To retain or obtain your manuscript ID, please write to the respective journal editor regarding the loss of manuscript ID to help front for the request within 24hrs.

This publisher is so desperate for article submissions that it claims it is not charging an article processing charge at this time. Among scholarly open-access publishers, this one ranks among the most annoying, unprofessional, and sloppy. Because this is a medical publisher, its unprofessionalism makes it that much more dangerous than others.

Hat tip: Dr. Ali Mobasheri

Appendix: List of ClinMed International Library journals as of 2014-09-01:

1. Clinical Medical Reviews and Case Reports
2. International Journal of Anesthetics and Anesthesiology
3. International Journal of Blood Research and Disorders
4. International Journal of Cancer and Clinical Research
5. International Journal of Clinical Cardiology
6. International Journal of Diabetes and Clinical Research
7. International Journal of Immunology and Immunotherapy
8. International Journal of Medical Nano Research
9. International Journal of Neurology and Neurotherapy
10. International Journal of Ophthalmology and Clinical Research
11. International Journal of Respiratory and Pulmonary Medicine
12. International Journal of Stem cell Research & Therapy
13. International Journal of Surgery Research and Practice
14. International Journal of Virology and AIDS
15. Journal of Genetics and Genome Research
16. Obstetrics and Gynaecology Cases – Reviews

The impostor (top) and the victim (bottom).

BioMed Research is a brand-new open-access publisher based in India that recently launched with 21 open-access journals. The publisher copies the look, feel — and even the tagline — of the established OA publisher BioMed Central.

This new publisher has a single, six-member editorial board for all 21 of its low-quality journals, and it promises a fast peer review process:

We Review the Manuscript under Fast Track System and time taken from submission to online publication is Less Than 10 Days!

Most of the new publisher’s journals have article content, but it is lifted from other publishers. For example, the article “Bioactive Potential of Seagrass Extracts against Dengue Fever Mosquito” appears in BioMed Research’s journal called BMR Parasitology, but most of the content appears to be lifted from the article “Bioactivity of seagrass against the dengue fever mosquito Aedes aegypti larvae” that originally appeared in the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine, a journal published by Elsevier.

It should say “Author Guidelines.”

The publisher claims to be based in Kanpur Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India. The table below, copied from the website, shows the article processing charges for Indians and for “foreigner authors.”

Discrimination?

This is clearly a junk publisher, and I am sure that the vast majority of researchers will have the scholarly publishing literacy skills necessary to be able to recognize and avoid this as a predatory publisher. Let’s hope it quickly withers and dies.

Appendix: List of BioMed Research Journals as of 2014-09-01:

1. BMR Antioxidants & Redox Biology
2. BMR Biochemistry
3. BMR Bioinformatics & Cheminformatics
4. BMR Biology
5. BMR Biotechnology
6. BMR Cancer Research
7. BMR Cellular and Molecular Biology
8. BMR Complementary and Alternative Medicine
9. BMR Food & Nutrition Research
10. BMR Gene and Genome Biology
11. BMR Medicinal Chemistry Research
12. BMR Medicine
13. BMR Microbiology
14. BMR Parasitology
15. BMR Phytomedicine
16. BMR Toxicology
17. International Journal of Engineering & Scientific Research
18. International Journal of Ethnobiology & Ethnomedicine
19. International Journal of Pharmacy & Bio-Sciences
20. Journal of Plant & Agriculture Research
21. Pharmacology & Toxicology Research

96 journals ready and waiting.

I have another large “fleet launch” of journals to report: Academia Research, based somewhere.

The publisher launched recently with 96 brand new scholarly journals, most of them broadly focused. This publisher uses the gold open-access model and bills authors upon acceptance of a manuscript. It says,

Fees and Charges: A handling fee of $550 will be billed to the authors for each manuscript published.

Other than this, there’s not much to say about this publisher. It has a minimalist website that provides little of the information that scholarly publishers conventionally provide.

Some of its journals have only a couple editorial board members, yet they are accepting manuscript submissions, which is done through email.

The publisher brags about its quick review process, saying, on its “Frequently Ask [sic] Questions” page,

The average review cycle is around 15 working days.

Their excellent graphics just make me want to submit a paper immediately

On its “About Us” page, most of which is lifted from other publishers without attribution, the publisher states,

… if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors agree to automatic transfer of the copyright to the publisher.

So, if you publish here, you will be paying the publisher and also surrendering your copyright to him. Sounds like a rotten deal to me.

I strongly recommend against submitting scholarly papers to all 96 journals published by Academia Research.

Appendix: Academia Research journals as of 2014-09-01:

1. Advances in Accounting and Taxation
2. Advances in African Studies and Development
3. Advances in Agricultural Economics and Extension
4. Advances in AIDS and HIV Research
5. Advances in Bacteriology Research and Review
6. Advances in Biodiversity and Conservation Research
7. Advances in Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis
8. Advances in Biophysics and Structural Biology
9. Advances in Biotechnology Research
10. Advances in Brewing and Distilling
11. Advances in Cancer and Experimental Oncology Research
12. Advances in Cell and Animal Biology Research
13. Advances in Cell Biology and Genetics Research
14. Advances in Cereals and Oilseeds
15. Advances in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
16. Advances in Civil Engineering and Construction Technology
17. Advances in Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology Research
18. Advances in Clinical Medicine
19. Advances in Clinical Pathology and Forensic Medicine
20. Advances in Dentistry and Oral Hygiene Research
21. Advances in Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering
22. Advances in Diabetes and Endocrinology Research
23. Advances in Economics and International Finance
24. Advances in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Research
25. Advances in Engineering and Computer Innovations
26. Advances in Engineering and Technology Research
27. Advances in Entomology and Nematology
28. Advances in Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology
29. Advances in Epidemiology Research
30. Advances in Evolutionary Biology Research
31. Advances in Fine and Studio Art
32. Advances in Fisheries and Aquaculture
33. Advances in General and Molecular Virology
34. Advances in Genetics and Molecular Biology Research
35. Advances in Geography and Regional Planning
36. Advances in Geology and Mining Research
37. Advances in Horticulture and Forestry
38. Advances in Hospitality Management and Tourism
39. Advances in Infectious Diseases and Immunity Research
40. Advances in Internet and Information Systems
41. Advances in Languages and Culture
42. Advances in Livestock Production
43. Advances in Material Science and Engineering
44. Advances in Mechanical Engineering Research
45. Advances in Media and Communication Studies
46. Advances in Medical Genetics and Genomics Research
47. Advances in Medical Laboratory and Diagnosis Research
48. Advances in Medicinal Plants Research
49. Advances in Metabolomics and Systems Biology Research
50. Advances in Microbiology and Antimicrobials
51. Advances in Music and Dance
52. Advances in Neuroscience and Behavioral Health Research
53. Advances in Nursing and Midwifery Research
54. Advances in Oceanography and Marine Science
55. Advances in Parasitology and Vector Biology Research
56. Advances in Petroleum and Gas Engineering
57. Advances in Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy Research
58. Advances in Philosophical Research and Reviews
59. Advances in Physical Education and Sport Management
60. Advances in Physiology and Pathophysiology
61. Advances in Plant Breeding and Crop Science
62. Advances in Plant Physiology and Science
63. Advances in Political Science and International Relations
64. Advances in Public Administration and Policy Research
65. Advances in Soil Science and Environmental Management
66. Advances in Stored Products and Postharvest Research
67. Advances in Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences
68. Advances in Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health Research
69. Advances in Yeast and Fungal Research
70. African Advances in Agricultural Research
71. African Advances in Biochemistry Research
72. African Advances in Business Management
73. African Advances in Ecology
74. African Advances in Food Science
75. African Advances in History and Culture
76. African Advances in Marketing Management
77. African Advances in Mathematics and Computer Science
78. African Advances in Microbiology Research
79. African Advances in Nutrition and Metabolism Research
80. African Advances in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
81. African Advances in Pharmacy and Pharmacology Research
82. African Advances in Physical Sciences
83. African Advances in Pure and Applied Chemistry
84. African Advances in Sociology and Anthropology
85. Educational Research and Reports
86. Environmental Sciences and Essays
87. International Advances in Computer Engineering Research
88. International Advances in Educational Administration and Policy Studies
89. International Advances in English and Literature
90. International Advances in Library and Information Science
91. International Advances in Psychology and Counselling
92. International Advances in Science and Technology Education Research
93. International Advances in Vocational and Technical Education
94. International Advances in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering
95. Public Health Research and Essays
96. Scientific Research and Review

APCs create a digital divide.

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are the fees charged to authors upon acceptance of their papers in gold (author pays) open-access journals, and authors are getting tired of paying these increasingly higher fees. This is called APC fatigue.

A recent letter to the editor appearing in the Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan documented the increasing APC fatigue that authors are feeling. The grass-roots letter documents the divide that APCs create between well-funded authors and those lacking sufficient funding.

The letter, written by physiology professor Sultan Ayoub Meo, is entitled, “Open Access Journals: Open for Rich, Closed for Poor.” In the letter he describes journals with high article processing charges and asks,

In many developing countries still, the monthly salary of a senior science faculty (Professor) in public sector institutes is less than $1000 / month. How is it possible the researchers from the developing countries can publish their papers in such journals?

I regularly receive emails from people all over the world asking me about how they might avoid article processing charges. Many publishers claim to waive the charges for low-income countries, but most open-access publishers are in business to make a profit, so there’s little incentive for them to waive or discount their onerous fees.

Here are two examples of emails I have received:

Dear Jeffrey,
May I please have a list of journals that I can submit to. Because some of this high reputable journals like IEEE, Hindawi, Springe etc, their publication fees are too expensive. For a computer scientist
Makinde [surname redacted]

Here’s another:

Our group has written a mini review with over 200 citations on the links between infections and cancer we are finding only a few free inexpensive places to publish. Most are expensive requesting up to 2 thousand an article. Is their a free credible open source we can submit for medical content. Thank you for your recommendation, we are new to publishing. I enjoyed your comments and information on the subject.

thanks

Dino [Surname redacted]

As seen in the image below, some publishers are no longer offering waivers:

“Waiver policy is not applicable.”  Taken from here.

Gold open-access is the predominant open-access model, and there are hundreds of for-profit publishers using this model, with more appearing almost daily. The evidence shown here indicates that scholarly authors are weary of paying APC and are starting to experience APC fatigue.

Also, because most gold open-access publishers are for-profit companies, their first concern is profit, and many are becoming reluctant to grant discounts and waivers on article processing charges.

Long gone …

You spend a couple years carrying out some research, another year writing it up, and then you submit your research manuscript to an open-access publisher. It’s accepted, you pay the article processing charges, and then it is published online. A year later, the publisher goes out of business and all its published articles disappear forever.

This is the actual scenario for many authors who published with the former open-access publisher called VictorQuest Publications.

VictorQuest, now officially dissolved, published these seven journals [Note: the links go to the Wayback Machine's archived version of the pages]:

International Journal of Basic Sciences and Applied Research (ISSN: 2147-3749)
International Journal of Agronomy and Plant Production (ISSN: 2051-1914)
International Journal of Sport Studies (ISSN: 2251-7502)
International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Research (ISSN: 2322-4002)
International Journal of Management and Humanity Sciences (ISSN: 2322-424X)
International Journal of Traditional and Herbal Medicine (ISSN: 2345-3249)
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Engineering computations

If you’re an author who paid article processing charges to this company, reasonably expecting that your content would be available forever, it appears that you are out of luck. I had this publisher on my list early on, and the criteria I use when evaluating publishers includes analyzing the publisher’s plans for digital preservation. This publisher had none, and its demise illustrates the value of digital preservation.

Scholarly authors should not submit their works to journals that lack honest and standard digital preservation practices, especially if they are paying to publish.

While it’s true that some articles are still available on the internet, scattered around the web at various websites such as ResearchGate, the articles were not published bearing Creative Commons licenses; instead, they had copyright statements:

Copyrighted.

These copyright statements may make it harder for legitimate organizations to archive any remaining VictorQuest articles floating around, fearing legal action from the copyright owner.

It is also entirely possible that the owners of VictorQuest never intended the operation to be permanent. It’s ephemeral existence may have been the strategy from the beginning: make some quick and easy money, and then disappear.

Update:

After I drafted this blogpost, Dr. Jaime Teixeira da Silva reported to me that he found one of the VictorQuest journals still functioning. This is the International Journal of Agronomy and Plant Production (IJAPP). The site bears one of VictorQuest’s old logos (a logo that appears to have been lifted from the SEREN Global Media website) and apparently all the original articles. So it appears that VictorQuest is not completely dead. Note that the journal uses bogus metrics (Universal Impact Factor (UIF): 0.5564; Global Impact Factor (GIF): 0.467) to promote itself.

Did VictorQuest lift this logo from SEREN?

Backward advance.

I learned recently of a mass-resignation from the editorial board of an open-access journal. The journal, Advances in Anthropology, is published by the troubled publisher Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP).

The current editorial board.

Here’s a screenshot (above) of the current editorial board. It has nine members plus the Editor-in-Chief Anatole Klyosov.

I wrote to the former Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Fatimah Jackson, who confirmed the mass resignation. She replied:

Thanks so much for your message. Indeed, I resigned as Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Anthropology after consistent and flagrant unethical breaches by the editorial staff in China. [ ...]. The senior members of the Editorial Board resigned as well and we wrote up the editorial conditions we wanted implemented before we would return. The editorial staff in China was unwilling to integrate the scholars on the Editorial Board into the decision-making process regarding the review, acceptance, and publication of articles. This was unacceptable. For them it was only about making money. We were simply their “front”. [...].

Best wishes,

Fatimah Jackson

The former editorial board. Note that Dr. Jackson is now at Howard University. Image courtesy of the Wayback Machine

As best I can tell, this resignation occurred around a year ago.

In recent years, editorial board mass-resignations were generally carried out by activists wanting to take action against subscription journals. This is the first mass-resignation I know of from an open-access journal.

Is this picture pirated?

The International Journal of Medical Science Research and Practice (IJMSRP) is a new medical mega-journal that is probably published out of India, though the “contact us” page for the journal neglects to list a location. This journal is notable for publishing a one-page article that is a horrible poem about colitis.

The poem is entitled “Ulcerative Colitis,” and it’s written by Dr. Sanjeev Narang, a professor in the — perhaps fittingly — Department of Pathology at the Index Medical College in Indore, India.

Here are the first two lines of the poem:

Begins in the rectum and backwards it goes
No mercy to any part of colon it shows.

 

A screenshot from the PDF version of the poem.

I’ll spare you the rest, but I warn you — it’s painful to read. The poem is so, um, asinine that even the most dedicated open-access activists will demand a paywall.

The journal itself is new. It has a slick appearance, with rotating images of pretty females on its home page. It includes an editorial board, but no affiliations are listed. I have added it to my list. The doctor who alerted me to the journal said the poem is likely the best article in the issue, a reference to the poor quality of the others.

Here is a PDF version of the article.

British what?

The world’s newest open-access journal is the Integrated Journal of British (IJBRITISH). If the journal’s name strikes you as strange, that’s because it is strange, just like the journal’s other aspects.

Though the title implies a U.K. base, the journal makes no effort to mask its true headquarters location (as many South Asian OA publishers do): First Floor, 243, Zone 2, MPN, BPL, MP, India.

I also don’t understand the term “integrated” in the title and suspect they confused this term with “international.”

In its spam email, now in the process of being transmitted to many thousands of busy researchers, the journal brags about its very precise impact factor, 3.3275:

Yeah, right.

The impact factor was awarded by the company called Universal Impact Factor, and they issued a certificate to prove the metric is “true.” Somehow, the journal was able to earn this impact factor even though it has only published two issues. Also, the issues were published in 2014, but the metric is for 2013, before the journal even existed.

The journal’s wolf logo is apparently lifted, with some embellishment, from a home improvement company in Wisconsin called Wolf Hollow Homes.

Copied?

Is this the type of open-access journal that the British wish to promote? I do hope not.

The original, respected journal.

As the surge of open-access journals continues, we are seeing more cases of journal title duplication. Here’s a case in which a one-man, Toronto-based OA outfit essentially copied the title of an established scholarly journal from a respected British publisher.

• Original journal: The Journal of Agricultural Science
• Copycat journal: Journal of Agricultural Science
  

The original journal is published by Cambridge University Press. Its first volume is from 1906.

The shabby copy.

The Toronto-based publisher is called Canadian Center of Science and Education. Its Journal of Agriculture has been published since 2009.

The Canadian Center of Science and Education (CCSE) is one of four brands or imprints owned by Wenwu Zhao, who immigrated to Canada from China in the early 2000s and began publishing. It is based in Toronto. His other three brands are:

Macrothink Institute (publishes 37 journals; purports to be based in Las Vegas, Nevada)

SciEdu Press (publishes 25 journals)

RedFame Publishing (publishes 10 journals; purports to be based in Beaverton, Oregon)

The journals are all broad in scope, and I have documented that CCSE does a pretend peer review. Zhao is a massive spammer, but he often creates and uses fake female identities in the spam emails. One of the names he uses is Bella Dong. I call this “spamming in drag.”‘

Wenwu Zhao

Finally, climate change skeptic Khabibullo Abdusamatov has used the CCSE journal Applied Physics Research to publish one of his controversial works.

Are publishers like this one the future of scholarly communication?

Proof that anyone can be a scholarly publisher.

The American Based Research Journal, which claims to be based in the UK, is providing researchers with some much needed comic relief by sending out a ridiculous spam email soliciting article manuscripts.The journal claims it partners with a university in New Jersey, and it claims its articles are indexed in Scribd and SlideShare, even though these are not indexing services.

Partnering with Princeton?

Spam Email

I have seen hundreds of spam emails from low-quality scholarly publishers, but this one stands out for its unintended comic effect. The spam email begins:

Dear Dear Author,

We are really impressed after reading your research work:

“Research Article”

The email continues:

Our journal American Based Researche Journal (ISSN-2304-7151)<http://www.abrj.org/&gt; with good reputation and published by USA PhD Doctors Collaboration and referred from them, which focuses on business, management, marketing, finance, economics, human resource management, Project thesis, Business problems and solutions and relevant subjects.

ABRJ INDEXED IN:

ULRICHS, CABLE’S DIRECTORY, SSRN (#1825786), GOOGLE SCHOLAR, ELECTRONIC JOURNAL’S DIRECTORY, GLOB ETHICS, PUBSHUB, INDEX COPERNICUS and Under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/&gt;.

Online Publications Packages:

DB (1) Double blind peer-review process for 1 paper.$150

Please send us the articles for publish from students, Research scholars and professors for Calls for Papers-Sep-25-2014 publications. It would be greatly appreciated if you could share this information with your colleagues and associates.

The email is signed:

Best wishes,

Editor
Dr. Merry Jeans
New York, USA

This is clearly a made-up name. I found older copies of this spam email archived on the internet dating from 2013, signed using different names.

Here is a PDF copy of the email. Needless to say, I recommend against submitting papers to this journal, which apparently, is really based in Pakistan.

Poor management.

The International Journal of Management Research and Review (IJMRR) is typical of the many low-quality and deceptive megajournals that are started up in India every week.

This one stands out, however, for opening up a window into its review process, something that few predatory publishers do. On its “Reviewer Report” page, the journal displays this web form that reviewers fill out when submitting their peer reviews:

The future of peer review for open-access journals?

As you can see, all the reviewer has to do is enter his name and the article title. Then he selects radio buttons (🔘) for Best, Good or Poor for four questions, and Yes or No for the other one. Finally, the reviewer enters a numerical value to answer the ungrammatical prompt, “How Much Score Get This Title (1-10).”

The form does not lend itself to, and probably prevents, a proper and legitimate peer review.

This is a management journal, yet it is a superb example of how not to run a business. The journal falsely proclaims it has an impact factor (0.381), and the editor-in-chief and the co-editor are listed without any affiliations:

Mr. Who ?

Finally, if you’re looking for a cheap place to publish, this journal has among the lowest article processing charges I’ve seen:

Cheap.

I don’t know how a journal could be sustained on such a small income. I don’t expect this journal to last long and am sure its article content will likely disappear from the internet when the owner departs or gets bored with this, for the journal has no digital preservation plans, another example of bad management.

Thoughtless.

American Research thoughts is a new open-access journal published by a Romanian-Indian team of two people. The title American Research Thoughts is not suitable for a professional scholarly journal, and the rest of the operation is unprofessional as well.

The journal is published by Ecaterina Patrascu from Romania, and Kishor V Shetti, from India. In fact, authors who publish in the journal can send their article processing fees directly into Mr. Shetti’s bank account:

Your money goes into this guy’s personal bank account.

… or they can use PayPal and send the money to Ecaterina’s PayPal account:

Or you can send your money to Cati’s PayPal account.

The publishing fee is $30. There is no explanation why a Romanian / Indian collaboration is publishing a journal with “American” in the title. Perhaps they think this title will generate more article submissions (and therefore revenue)?

The journal launched even before getting an ISSN:

Oops, forgot something.

Ecaterina is the owner of another low-quality scholarly open access journal, called European Academic Research.

Bottom-tier.

The journal boasts that it has an impact factor of 3.1, but the metric is assigned by Universal Impact Factor, a fake metrics company.

In closing, I offer a genuine American research thought — my own: Avoid these two journals at all costs.

Pseudo-scholar

Google Scholar is the world’s largest and most-used academic search engine, yet it is increasingly becoming polluted with junk science, making it a potentially dangerous database for anyone doing serious research, from students to scientists.

The problem is that Google Scholar aims to be comprehensive, indexing articles from as many scholarly appearing journals as possible. On the surface, that goal seems noble, but a closer look reveals a major flaw in the strategy.

Because predatory publishers perform a fake or non-existent peer review, they have polluted the global scientific record with pseudo-science, a record that Google Scholar dutifully and perhaps blindly includes in its central index. Most predatory journals are included in Google Scholar. The database does not sufficiently screen for quality, in my opinion.

Google Scholar works well for known-item searches, for example, when you quickly need to locate a known article or a paper by a known author.

It performs poorly, on the other hand, at finding an article on a specific topic. It doesn’t use controlled vocabularies and includes junk science in its index. If you aren’t an expert, you are unable to separate out the junk science from the authentic science, and both are included one after another in Google Scholar search results. For those seeking the top scholarly literature on a given subject, the best resource is a focused, high-quality, curated database licensed by a library.

Junk Science

Predatory journals are also enabling the publication of much “activist science,” publishing articles that appear to be scientific but that could never pass peer review and be accepted and published in authentic journals. Activists publishing pseudo-scientific articles indexed in Google Scholar include:

• Those promoting hypotheses that mainstream science has found to be false, such as claiming that vaccines are the etiology of autism, or claiming that nuclear power is more dangerous than has been shown to be true

• Those denying hypotheses that mainstream science has found to be true, such as those denying that global warming is occurring

Additionally, people are using low quality scholarly journals to pursue personal theories or interests. These include:

• Those claiming far-fetched cosmological discoveries or theories that are impossible to prove or disprove

• Those publishing obvious pseudo-science, such as researchers documenting alien sightings

• Those using predatory journals to support a business interest, such as those promoting a new, unapproved medicine

• Those abusing the established taxonomy protocol to name species after themselves

The Future of Science

Science is cumulative, with new research building on findings already recorded in scholarly books and journals. When junk science is published bearing the imprimatur of science, later scientists may inadvertently use that work as the basis of their work, threatening the integrity of their results.

Google scholar does not sufficiently screen for quality and includes much junk science. To remain relevant and valuable. Google Scholar needs to limit the database to articles from authentic and respected scholarly publications and exclude articles from known publishers of junk science.

Not off to a good start.

The brand-new mega oncology journal Cancer Research Frontiers is in the process of launching. It is not associated with Nature Publishing Group’s open-access imprint Frontiers, as far as I can tell. The journal is ambitious and makes many promises to prospective authors, promises I am not sure they can keep.

For example, the journal promises that peer review will be completed and acceptance decisions will be made within four weeks and promises that the articles will be indexed in PubMed and included in PubMed Central, even though these two services likely haven’t heard of this new journal yet. The website states,

3. Rapid publication

Cancer Research Frontiers offers fast publication whilst maintaining rigorous peer review. Initial decisions on publication will be reached within four weeks. After manuscripts are accepted, they will be published online within 24 hours. Fully formatted versions of the article will replace the accepted manuscript within one week. Articles will then be available through PubMed Central and listed/indexed by PubMed.

Is a rushed peer-review process acceptable in a complex, precise, and crucial field such as oncology?

The journal is also trying to lure potential authors by hanging their ambitious impact factor plans in front of them. The journal’s website says:

6. Our goal

When we started this journal, our editorial team set a goal: middle-high journal ranking within the categories [sic] of oncology, with an initial impact factor between 3 and 5 by 2016, and even higher later. We believe our goal are [sic] attainable because of our peer-review methods (quick and fair), a robust stream of submissions from top researchers, and a cadre of prestigious editors and reviewers.

The journal’s website makes these promises regarding indexing and impact factor:

Cancer Research Frontiers will be indexed by PubMed, Google Scholar, the Chemical Abstracts Service, Index Copernicus, DOAJ, and OAJSE after several consecutive issues have been published and Cancer Research Frontiers has fulfilled the indexing requirements.

Although Cancer Research Frontiers does not now have an Impact Factor, it is working with Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Cancer Research Frontiers will be available within three years.

On its ‘contact us’ page the journal gives this address:

123 3rd Ave, Suite 101, New York, NY 10003, USA

 However, when I search this address on Google Maps, I see a drugstore.

Who is behind this journal? I have no idea. The domain name registration is “privacy protected” and provides no helpful information. I was surprised to learn that the Editor-in-Chief is:

William R. Brown, M.D.
Professor Emeritus of Medicine
University of Colorado
Denver, Colorado, USA

I was surprised because this is my university! I emailed Dr. Brown but have not received a response. Also, my university’s medical campus is in Aurora, Colorado, not Denver.

Did all the editorial board members really agree to serve? I learned about this journal through a doctor in Poland who received a spam email praising one of his earlier works and inviting him to submit a paper to this journal’s “inaugural issue.” The old “we read your excellent article, please send us one” trick.

Really a member?

The journal states that it is a member of COPE, but I cannot find it on their membership list. Is it lying?

The journal has published one article so far, an editorial, by the EiC, Dr. Brown, and one colleague. The editorial does not have a DOI associated with it, despite that the journal says it will assign them:

Oops, wrong word.

The correct term is “Digital object identifier,” not “Digital objective identifier.”

 So, in summary, this is a brand-new journal that is making promises it may not be able to keep in order to attract article submissions, it is spamming authors using the old trick of praising their earlier articles, it promises a fast peer review despite the complex nature of the oncology field, and it seems unaware of scholarly publishing conventions. There are many open-access oncology journals out there, and this journal has not made a case that it’s better than the existing ones or worthy of manuscript submissions.

Appendix:

Here’s a copy of the spam email.

Cracked ?

One of the newest scholarly open-access publishers is Pyrex Journals. It launched recently with ten broad-scoped journals. And it has a twin.

Although the publisher’s “contact us” page does not list any physical location, it is easy to figure out that this publisher is based in Nigeria’s Delta State.

I’ve learned that it’s customary in Nigeria to give businesses salient, easy-to-remember names, so there are many Nigerian open-access publishers with unusual names. This practice doesn’t transfer well, for in the West we are accustomed to serious names for scholarly publishers.

A Pyrex beaker

As you know, Pyrex is a brand name for kitchen cookware and also for laboratory glassware. Perhaps this is one reason why the publisher is named Pyrex Journals. Despite its name, the publisher is not very transparent.

Donnish ?

Pyrex Journals has a twin: Donnish Journals. I am not sure what “Donnish” means, if anything.

Both publishers launched at about the same time. Both are spamming authors, sometimes soliciting manuscript submissions for both publishers in the same email. The spam emails are signed by “Prof. George MacGregor, Media Publicity,” but I think the name is made up.

More worrisome, both publishers launched with ten journals, and they are identical except for the publisher’s name which is incorporated into the journal titles, e.g.,

Pyrex Journal of Agricultural Research (PJAR)

Donnish Journal of Agricultural Research (DJAR)

I don’t understand why anyone would launch two open-access publishers with duplicative titles. Many Nigerian open-access publishers fail after a few months in operation, and I suspect these two will as well.

Hat tip: Dr. Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

Appendix 1: Journals Published by Pyrex Journals as of 2014-11-06

1. Pyrex Journal of Agricultural Research (PJAR)
2. Pyrex Journal of Biomedical Research (PJBR)
3. Pyrex Journal of Business and Finance Management Research (PJBFMR)
4. Pyrex Journal of Educational Research and Reviews (PJERR)
5. Pyrex Journal of Engineering and Manufacturing Technology (PJEMT)
6. Pyrex Journal of Food Science and Technology (PJFST)
7. Pyrex Journal of Medicinal Plant Research (PJMPR)
8. Pyrex Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (PJMMS)
9. Pyrex Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology Research (PJMBR)
10. Pyrex Journal of Research in Environmental Studies (PJRES)

Appendix 2: Journals Published by Donnish Journals as of 2014-11-06

1. Donnish Journal of Agricultural Research (DJAR)
2. Donnish Journal of Biomedical Research (DJBR)
3. Donnish Journal of Business and Finance Management Research (DJBFMR)
4. Donnish Journal of Educational Research and Reviews (DJERR)
5. Donnish Journal of Engineering and Manufacturing Technology (DJEMT)
6. Donnish Journal of Food Science and Technology (DJFST)
7. Donnish Journal of Medicinal Plant Research (DJMPR)
8. Donnish Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (DJMMS)
9. Donnish Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology Research (DJMBR)
10. Donnish Journal of Research in Environmental Studies (DJRES)

Scholarly hypoxia is more like it.

Scholoxy is an India-based scholarly publisher of six medical journals. The publisher is a massive spammer, and it includes a medical journal with an unscientific title.

The publisher describes itself using poorly-edited English:

Scholoxy Publications tend to publish quality articles on the current ongoing research in the field of Bioscience and Medicine.

We as e-publishers, providing global web exposure for the journals and articles published which is freely and permanently available online for anyone, anywhere as the articles are subject under creative commons attribute license 4.0.

Its Facebook page shows 5,148 likes, but I suspect most of these have been purchased.

Scholoxy also claims to have an office in the U.S. state of Georgia, but a quick Google search reveals that the address they give (11555 Medlock Bridge, Suite 100, Johns Creek, Georgia) is that of a virtual office company.

Something’s wrong here.

Of particular concern is Scholoxy’s journal Hyperplasia of Cancer. The title is contradictory. According to Dr. Udo Schumacher, Professor for Anatomy and Director of the Department of Anatomy and Experimental Morphology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf,

Hyperplasia of cancers do not exist and do not make sense. Hyperplasia means a primarily non-malignant increase of cells, e.g. in the prostate. Cancer is per se malignant and hence no hyperplasia can occur in cancer.

Editor-in-Chief

According to the Scholoxy website, the journal’s editor-in-chief is Dr. Dario Marchetti. The journal, perhaps tellingly, has not published any articles yet.

Successfully publishing medical journals requires much professionalism and experience. This publisher completely lacks both.

Summary: Scholoxy is a highly questionable scholarly publisher with six medical journals in its portfolio, including one with a contradictory, unscientific title. The publisher sends massive amounts of spam to busy researchers, recruiting editorial board memberships and manuscripts. Its website is sloppy and poorly edited, it has a questionable number of Facebook likes, and it uses a virtual office address in Georgia to spoof a U.S. presence.

Appendix: List of Scholoxy journals as of 2014-11-09

1. Chronicles of Science
2. Diabetes and the Pancreas
3. Hyperplasia of Cancer
4. Journal of Anesthesia and Pain Management
5. Journal of Cardiac Circulation
6. Pharmacology and Alternative Medicine

Dark matter.

Progress in Physics is an open-access journal that publishes articles unsuitable for mainstream physics journals. Among other roles, it provides desperate authors, some of whom have been blacklisted from arXiv, a place to publish their work.

At least this journal — which should not be confused with the respected journals Progress of Theoretical Physics and Reports on Progress in Physics — does not spam. That’s probably why I only heard about it recently.

I learned about the journal from a physics researcher whose colleague furtively submitted a co-authored manuscript to the journal, a submission that the co-authors were unaware of until it was accepted by the journal, an acceptance that happened fast and without the journal asking for any revisions.

My correspondent expressed these concerns about the journal:

1. The journal has been in press for nearly 10 years, and does not appear to have any impact factor to speak of.
2. The journal’s name bears a striking resemblance to a highly-reputable journal Reports on Progress in Physics, with a very respectable following and impact factor, so I felt an attempt at name recognition was at play.
3. The journal bills itself as being peer-reviewed; however, the editor who notified us of our article’s acceptance said that his “associate editor” read it and had positive things to say, and thus accepted it.  There were no content-based comments, suggestions, or any sort of input on what should be done, aside from basic formatting, to ensure quality in their journal.
4. The article was accepted a mere three (3) days after being submitted for review.  This seems exceedingly fast to me.
5. There are submission/publication charges (clearly listed on their website), that allow it to be open-access.
6. Upon reading multiple articles, I found that, overall, there are a few number of authors who publish there, but publish there often, rather than several authors who publish there sporadically.
7. These authors often (but not always) have no institutional affiliation, they merely list their home address and personal (not professional) email and contact info (@yahoo.com).
8. The required the manuscript to be submitted in LaTex format, which allowed them to made modifications, and introduced multiple errors in our manuscript between what was submitted and what they sent back.
9. I won’t lend credibility to Wikipedia as a source of info, but I was pretty surprised in how much it read like an indictment.  Feel free to check it out for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_in_Physics

I agree. I’ve added this journal to my list in hopes that I can warn others to avoid it. Even the Wikipedia article about the journal calls it an “alternative science journal.” The encyclopedia also says “The journal has published papers by several authors, who, along with some of the editors, claim to have been blacklisted by the Cornell University arXiv as proponents of fringe scientific theories.”

Apparently arXiv does its peer review at the researcher level, rather than at the article level.

The visible light portion of the chromium spectrum.

This Southern Methodist University website, http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/websites.html, criticizes the journal, saying

Featuring, among other gems, A New Form of Matter — Unmatter, Composed of Particles and Anti-Particles by Florentin Smarandache, one of the “journal’s” associate editors, tenured professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico Gallup campus, and professional crackpot.

The internet has given new life to far-fetched scientific theories, and open-access journals like Progress in Physics gild these ideas with a counterfeit imprimatur of science.

I strongly recommend that all honest researchers avoid submitting their work to this highly questionable journal.

AIDS Denialism

Another day, another report of a junk science article published by China-based publisher Scientific Research Publishing, or SCIRP. This publisher specializes in publishing junk cosmology and junk physics, but with this article, the publisher is branching out into junk medical science, specifically AIDS denialism.

The article is entitled “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology” ^[1], and you don’t have to be a scientist to know that it’s junk, for it is a manifestation of AIDS denialism. The conclusion’s first paragraph says,

HIV is not etiologically involved in AIDS. It is just a common retrovirus found in AIDS conjuncturally. There is only AIDS that may not be strictly associated neither to a primary immune deficiency nor to an acquired immune deficiency. Actually, heart failure represents the causal factor of AIDS and many other “primary” immune deficiencies (p. 1821).

The article is indexed in Google Scholar, of course.

The article has a single reference, and it’s to a 2007 article by the same author (Pavel) in a subscription journal that’s indexed by EBSCO.

The publisher SCIRP has a comment feature (Disqus) at the end of each article it publishes, and I have been told that comments left after this article questioning its scientific integrity have been deleted.

The article says that HIV does not cause AIDS, yet the article is branded as a scientific article. This means it’s a threat to the public health, for it could lead to HIV transmission by anyone believing the paper’s conclusions. It’s immoral for SCIRP to publish such rubbish.

The author, Pavel, is currently sending out unsolicited emails to researchers in Europe, promoting the article.

Logos of the Empire?

The SCIRP Empire

China-based Scientific Research Publishing is a growing empire with four publishing imprints (brands) that I know of, plus one mega-journal that emulates PLOS ONE, publishing in both English and Chinese and with claimed offices in the United States, Canada, and China. The imprints include:

Scientific Research Publishing

Hans Publishers, Inc. (HansPub, 汉斯)

The mega-journal is OA Lib (Open Access Library).

There is also a possible connection between SCIRP and Sophia Publishing Group, based in British Columbia, but this connection is unclear:

Sophia Publishing Group (This is a meta-publisher, or platform, with the following two journal imprints):

BioPublisher

The 5th Publisher

I realize there may be some strong and honest articles published in SCIRP journals. However, these articles are devalued and stigmatized by association with all the junk science that SCIRP publishes. The authors of the good articles are being victimized by the publisher’s policy of publishing pseudoscientific articles like “Basic Principles Underlying Human Physiology.”

SCIRP only rarely retracts articles, preferring instead to protect the interests of its customers, the paying authors.

Hat tip: Deyan Yosifov

[1]. Pavel. Dumitru. (2014). Basic principles underlying human physiology. Health 6, 1816-1821.

Appendix

List of SCIRP journals as of 2014-12-13:

1. Advances in Aerospace Science and Technology
2. Advances in Aging Research
3. Advances in Alzheimer’s Disease
4. Advances in Anthropology
5. Advances in Applied Sociology
6. Advances in Biological Chemistry
7. Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology
8. Advances in Breast Cancer Research
9. Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science
10. Advances in Computed Tomography
11. Advances in Entomology
12. Advances in Enzyme Research
13. Advances in Historical Studies
14. Advances in Infectious Diseases
15. Advances in Internet of Things
16. Advances in Journalism and Communication
17. Advances in Linear Algebra & Matrix Theory
18. Advances in Literary Study
19. Advances in Lung Cancer
20. Advances in Materials Physics and Chemistry
21. Advances in Microbiology
22. Advances in Molecular Imaging
23. Advances in Nanoparticles
24. Advances in Parkinson’s Disease
25. Advances in Physical Education
26. Advances in Pure Mathematics
27. Advances in Remote Sensing
28. Advances in Reproductive Sciences
29. Advances in Sexual Medicine
30. Agricultural Sciences
31. American Journal of Analytical Chemistry
32. American Journal of Climate Change
33. American Journal of Computational Mathematics
34. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management
35. American Journal of Molecular Biology
36. American Journal of Operations Research
37. American Journal of Plant Sciences
38. Applied Mathematics
39. Archaeological Discovery
40. Art and Design Review
41. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences
42. Beijing Law Review
43. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine
44. CellBio
45. Chinese Medicine
46. Chinese Studies
47. Circuits and Systems
48. Communications and Network
49. Computational Chemistry
50. Computational Molecular Bioscience
51. Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering
52. Creative Education
53. Crystal Structure Theory and Applications
54. Current Urban Studies
55. Detection
56. E-Health Telecommunication Systems and Networks
57. Energy and Materials for Aerospace Engineering
58. Energy and Power Engineering
59. Engineering
60. Food and Nutrition Sciences
61. Forensic Medicine and Anatomy Research
62. Geomaterials
63. Graphene
64. Green and Sustainable Chemistry
65. Health
66. iBusiness
67. InfraMatics
68. Intelligent Control and Automation
69. Intelligent Information Management
70. International Journal of Analytical Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography
71. International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics
72. International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy
73. International Journal of Clinical Medicine
74. International Journal of Geosciences
75. International Journal of Intelligence Science
76. International Journal of Internet and Distributed Systems
77. International Journal of Medical Physics, Clinical Engineering and Radiation Oncology
78. International Journal of Modern Nonlinear Theory and Application
79. International Journal of Nonferrous Metallurgy
80. International Journal of Organic Chemistry
81. International Journal of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery
82. Int’l J. of Communications, Network and System Sciences
83. Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Environment
84. Journal of Analytical Sciences, Methods and Instrumentation
85. Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics
86. Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science
87. Journal of Biomaterials and Nanobiotechnology
88. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering
89. Journal of Biophysical Chemistry
90. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines
91. Journal of Building Construction and Planning Research
92. Journal of Cancer Therapy
93. Journal of Computer and Communications
94. Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications
95. Journal of Crystallization Process and Technology
96. Journal of Data Analysis and Information Processing
97. Journal of Diabetes Mellitus
98. Journal of Electromagnetic Analysis and Applications
99. Journal of Electronics Cooling and Thermal Control
100. Journal of Encapsulation and Adsorption Sciences
101. Journal of Environmental Protection
102. Journal of Financial Risk Management
103. Journal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization
104. Journal of Geographic Information System
105. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection
106. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies
107. Journal of Immune Based Therapies, Vaccines and Antimicrobials
108. Journal of Information Security
109. Journal of Intelligent Learning Systems and Applications
110. Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering
111. Journal of Mathematical Finance
112. Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering
113. Journal of Modern Physics
114. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering
115. Journal of Quantum Information Science
116. Journal of Sensor Technology
117. Journal of Service Science and Management
118. Journal of Signal and Information Processing
119. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications
120. Journal of Surface Engineered Materials and Advanced Technology
121. Journal of Sustainable Bioenergy Systems
122. Journal of Textile Science and Technology
123. Journal of Transportation Technologies
124. Journal of Tuberculosis Research
125. Journal of Water Resource and Protection
126. Low Carbon Economy
127. Materials Sciences and Applications
128. Microscopy Research
129. Modeling and Numerical Simulation of Material Science
130. Modern Chemotherapy
131. Modern Economy
132. Modern Instrumentation
133. Modern Mechanical Engineering
134. Modern Plastic Surgery
135. Modern Research in Catalysis
136. Modern Research in Inflammation
137. Natural Resources
138. Natural Science
139. Neuroscience & Medicine
140. New Journal of Glass and Ceramics
141. Occupational Diseases and Environmental Medicine
142. Open Journal of Accounting
143. Open Journal of Acoustics
144. Open Journal of Air Pollution
145. Open Journal of Anesthesiology
146. Open Journal of Animal Sciences
147. Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation
148. Open Journal of Apoptosis
149. Open Journal of Applied Biosensor
150. Open Journal of Applied Sciences
151. Open Journal of Biophysics
152. Open Journal of Blood Diseases
153. Open Journal of Business and Management
154. Open Journal of Civil Engineering
155. Open Journal of Clinical Diagnostics
156. Open Journal of Composite Materials
157. Open Journal of Depression
158. Open Journal of Discrete Mathematics
159. Open Journal of Earthquake Research
160. Open Journal of Ecology
161. Open Journal of Emergency Medicine
162. Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases
163. Open Journal of Energy Efficiency
164. Open Journal of Epidemiology
165. Open Journal of Fluid Dynamics
166. Open Journal of Forestry
167. Open Journal of Gastroenterology
168. Open Journal of Genetics
169. Open Journal of Geology
170. Open Journal of Immunology
171. Open Journal of Inorganic Chemistry
172. Open Journal of Inorganic Non-metallic Materials
173. Open Journal of Internal Medicine
174. Open Journal of Leadership
175. Open Journal of Marine Science
176. Open Journal of Medical Imaging
177. Open Journal of Medical Microbiology
178. Open Journal of Medical Psychology
179. Open Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
180. Open Journal of Metal
181. Open Journal of Microphysics
182. Open Journal of Modelling and Simulation
183. Open Journal of Modern Hydrology
184. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics
185. Open Journal of Modern Neurosurgery
186. Open Journal of Molecular and Integrative Physiology
187. Open Journal of Nephrology
188. Open Journal of Nursing
189. Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
190. Open Journal of Ophthalmology
191. Open Journal of Optimization
192. Open Journal of Organ Transplant Surgery
193. Open Journal of Organic Polymer Materials
194. Open Journal of Orthopedics
195. Open Journal of Pathology
196. Open Journal of Pediatrics
197. Open Journal of Philosophy
198. Open Journal of Physical Chemistry
199. Open Journal of Political Science
200. Open Journal of Polymer Chemistry
201. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine
202. Open Journal of Psychiatry
203. Open Journal of Radiology
204. Open Journal of Regenerative Medicine
205. Open Journal of Respiratory Diseases
206. Open Journal of Rheumatology and Autoimmune Diseases
207. Open Journal of Safety Science and Technology
208. Open Journal of Social Sciences
209. Open Journal of Soil Science
210. Open Journal of Statistics
211. Open Journal of Stomatology
212. Open Journal of Synthesis Theory and Applications
213. Open Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation
214. Open Journal of Thoracic Surgery
215. Open Journal of Urology
216. Open Journal of Veterinary Medicine
217. Optics and Photonics Journal
218. Pain Studies and Treatment
219. Pharmacology & Pharmacy
220. Positioning
221. Psychology
222. Smart Grid and Renewable Energy
223. Social Networking
224. Sociology Mind
225. Soft
226. Soft Nanoscience Letters
227. Spectral Analysis Review
228. Stem Cell Discovery
229. Surgical Science
230. Technology and Investment
231. Theoretical Economics Letters
232. Voice of the Publisher
233. Wireless Engineering and Technology
234. Wireless Sensor Network
235. World Journal of AIDS
236. World Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases
237. World Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery
238. World Journal of Condensed Matter Physics
239. World Journal of Engineering and Technology
240. World Journal of Mechanics
241. World Journal of Nano Science and Engineering
242. World Journal of Neuroscience
243. World Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology
244. World Journal of Vaccines

List of BioPublisher journals as of 2014-12-13:

1. American Agricultural Research Frontier
2. Aquatic Biological Research
3. Brewing Journal
4. Brewing Research
5. Cancer Research and Molecular Diagnostics
6. Computational Molecular Biology
7. European Research Biotechnology Progress
8. Genomics and Applied Biology
9. Genomics and Biotechnology
10. Genomics and Medical Biology
11. Herbal Medicine and Pharmacology Magazine
12. Insect Molecular Biology
13. Journal of Laboratory Medicine and Quarantine
14. Legume Genomics and Genetics
15. Marine Biology
16. Medical genetics and disease research
17. Molecular Plant Breeding

List of The 5th Publisher journals as of 2014-12-13:

1. Agriculture Civilization
2. Agriculture Inspection
3. Journal of Alternative Crops
4. Journal of Global Public Health

Accelerating profits

OMICS Group, the Hyderabad, India-based group of scholarly publishing-related companies, is expanding and now operates at least twelve publishing imprints (brands), as well as a scholarly conferences division.

It is headed by a dubious character who seems intent on conquering all of scholarly publishing and who may be a megalomaniac. Here I present an update on OMICS Group’s highly questionable business practices and describe the man behind them, Srinubabu Gedela.

OMICS Group now operates the following brands. Most are scholarly journal imprints.

OMICS Publishing Group Brands

e-Science Central

e-Clinical Central

e-Medical Central

e-Pharma Central

GSB Life Sciences

OMICS Group

OMICS Group Conferences

OMICS Group ebooks

Open Access Scientific Reports

Scholars Central

SciTechnol

United Scientific Group

I don’t have any direct evidence that the following three publishers are owned by OMICS. However, I have received reports that their business practices match those of the OMICS brands listed above.

Specifically, OMICS brands victimize researchers using spam email article solicitations that make no mention of the required publishing fees, quickly accepting papers the researchers submit and refusing to honor withdrawal requests when the horrified authors are presented with a bill for the publishing fees, fees that often are in the thousands of dollars.

Austin Publishing Group

Developing Country Think Tank Institute

MedCrave

Tag line fail.

The newest OMICS Group brand is the so-called United Scientific Group, with the tag line — A Maven Connecting Scientific Community — that makes no sense. The brand is still in the formative stages and has not yet launched any journals. It purports to be based in Silicon Valley.

I think OMICS Group’s business practices are highly questionable. The firm seeks to exploit the reputations of top researchers, their institutions, and legitimate scholarly publishing organizations. It capitalizes on these identities in its advertising, websites, and editorial boards and uses them to feign legitimacy and attract new article submissions, its main revenue source.

OMICS Group journals are known for publishing lots of “easy” papers such as commentaries, editorials, viewpoints, brief papers that fill up the online pages of its over 350 open-access journals. These quickly-written and published editorials then serve to make the journals appear more successful than they really are. They are full of content, but the content is mere fill.

The publisher purposefully belabors the process of removing names from journal editorial boards, ignoring initial requests and only removing names, in some cases, when legal action is threatened or initiated.

As stated, OMICS Group exploits the unwary; it spams researchers, broadcasting spam emails that make no mention of the publishing fees and then quickly accepts submitted papers. It then refuses to honor withdrawal requests when the horrified authors are presented with a bill for the publishing fees, fees that often are in the thousands of dollars.

Srinubabu Gedela

There is one main operator behind the Evil Empire of OMICS Group, and that man is Srinubabu Gedela. Coy and diminutive, he wears polyester sportcoats. He self-publishes a website full of puffery in which he paints himself as a corporate hero and fatuously crowns himself a ‘philathroper.’

He claims a Ph.D., but some have questioned whether he really completed it. It’s known he spent some time at Stanford but unclear whether he actually left there having earned any academic credential. It is at Stanford where he became fascinated with the word OMICS and decided to christen his publishing company with the term.

Writing in May, 2013, I documented what appears to be significant, apparent plagiarism in a book chapter that appeared under his name:

Gedela, Srinubabu. (2011). Integration, warehousing, and analysis strategies of omics data. In B. Mayer (Ed.), Bioinformatics for Omics data: Methods and protocols (pp. 399-414). New York: Humana Press.

My analysis is here, and it shows that Gedela’s chapter includes text lifted from Wikipedia articles, among other sources, with no attribution, no quotation marks.

Now Gedela is using his immense profits to try his hand in Bollywood as a Telugu film producer, brandishing his wealth for all to see as a member of the nouveau riche.

If you get spam from this company, the spam will not identify the publisher as OMICS Group; it will only use the name of the journal. Therefore, it is now necessary to carry out exhaustive research before accepting any spam email solicitation. Do not submit any work to any of the OMICS Group brands listed here.

OMICS is a sneaky company that will use deception to get you to submit a scholarly manuscript. If you do, the paper will be quickly accepted, and you will receive an invoice in a week or so. Gedela’s lackeys will refuse to withdraw the paper, and they will hound you for the balance due, which will total several thousand dollars.