Publisher Can’t Make Up Its Mind

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