One of many in Canada.
We recently learned about the Canadian Science and Technology Press Inc. a scholarly publisher with six brand-new scholarly journals. The journal lists an address in the Toronto, Ontario suburb of Richmond Hill. Only two of the six journals have any content. One, the Canadian Journal of Plant Protection, has published two issues. The other one with content is the Canadian Journal of Plant Breeding, which has published one issue.
Unfortunately, both journals have published content that originally appeared in other publications. For example, the Canadian Journal of Plant Protection includes the article “In vitro evaluation of some chemicals and plant extracts against colony growth of Xanthomonas campestris pv. malvacearum causing bacterial blight of cotton” in its first issue. This same article was previously published in another journal, namely vol. 3, no. 1 of the European Journal of Experimental Biology, published by Pelagia Research Library, another publisher on my list. So, this is an instance of duplicate publication.
Stolen title.
One of the new journals the Canadian Science and Technology Press is launching is called Scientific Canadian. This name is already in use by a prominent blog, so it appears the publisher is trying to “borrow” some of the blog’s name recognition value. The publisher indicates it is an open-access publisher but doesn’t disclose what its author processing charges will be. Also, it is unclear who is really behind this operation.
The publisher displays a page counter on its pages. When I first began examining the publisher, most of the page views were close to 70,000. Now, a couple days later, they are all around 80,000. I don’t think the counters are honest.
I recommend against submitting papers to this publisher or agreeing to serve on its editorial boards. There are many operations similar to this one in Canada, which is becoming a very popular place for low-quality, predatory publishers.
Appendix: List of journals published by the Canadian Science and Technology Press Inc. as of May 6, 2013
- Scientific Canadian
- Canadian Journal of Plant Protection (CJPP)
- Canadian Journal of Plant Breeding (CJPB)
- Canadian Journal of Genomic Era (CJGE)
- Canadian Journal of Food Science (CJFS)
- Canadian Journal of Animal Research (CJAR)
- Canadian Journal of Green Energy Research (CJGER)
