Welcome to Journals Club !

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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)