… 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.
