Very popular in China.
The journal Computer Modelling and New Technologies is published by the Latvian Transport and Telecommunication Institute (Transporta un sakaru institūts). It normally publishes quarterly (except five issues were published in 2014).
The problem, however, is that there’s a second website for a journal with the exact same title, except pretty much all the papers in that version of the journal are written by authors from China.
The institute.
First, here’s the authentic Computer Modelling and New Technologies. It began publishing in 1999. It’s not a predatory journal.
Second, the questionable version of the journal. It is found here: Computer Modelling and New Technologies. It uses the same title as the authentic version of the journal. It claims it’s published by the Latvian Transport Development and Education Association, however, not the Transport and Telecommunication Institute.
Its website has issues from 2001 on. From 2006-2013 it published quarterly. However, in 2014, it published 12 issues. While the one issue published in 2015 has some European authors, the previous issues have chiefly Chinese authors.
The fact that there are two websites for two very similar journals with the exact same title, with no links between them and no explanation on either one why there are two websites, raises these questions:
Why would two separate Latvian government agencies publish nearly identical journals, with one publishing chiefly research carried out in China and with Chinese authors?
Is the second one a really hijacked version of the journal, its publisher masquerading as a government agency?
Why are almost all the authors in the second website all from China, especially those with articles published in the 2014 issues?
Suspicious.
Both journals claim to be included in the following scholarly indexes:
INSPEC
VINITI
CAS Database
EI Compendex
However, the list of journals covered in INSPEC available here, http://www.theiet.org/resources/inspec/support/docs/loj.cfm?type=pdf does not include Computer Modelling and New Technologies.
I’m told that authors publishing papers in the second journal — the questionable one — are required to pay article processing charges to publish there, but the fees not mentioned on the website.
I understand that Chinese authors receive top academic credit and even monetary rewards when they publish in journals covered by certain indexes. It’s possible that the Chinese authors are publishing in a fake journal and being tricked into believing that they are publishing in a journal that is indexed in legitimate academic indexes.
How can we help Chinese scholars identify and avoid such potential scams?
