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And Now, a Proofreading Scam
A bogus proofreading service is spamming scholars with illiterate solicitations for its business. The spam email and the service’s website are both filled with typographical and grammatical errors....
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IBIMA Publishing: How NOT to Run a Business
The gold rush continues with IBIMA Publishing. By “gold rush,” I refer to the rush to set up gold (author-pays) open-access publishing sites that can make their owners easy money. This publisher has...
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Plagiarism in the “Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies”
The editor of the Journal of Sports Medicine & Doping Studies, Senthil P. Kumar, wrote an editorial in the journal that contains passages that appeared in three previously-published articles....
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Swiss Journals
We have observed the appearance of a new publisher: Swiss Journals. The publisher offers 16 journal titles in the fields of engineering, applied sciences, and health sciences. By looking up the domain...
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International Prank Involving Predatory Publishers Makes Headlines in Indonesia
Somebody copied a scholarly article, slightly changed the title, replaced the co-authors’ names, and submitted it to the predatory journal African Journal of Agricultural Research (published by...
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Two Print Journals Completely Hijacked by Online Hoodlums
Two print journals that didn’t have websites have had their identities completely stolen. Unknown persons have created impostor websites using the identities of the journals Wulfenia and Archives des...
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The Maryland Institute of Research, From Bangladesh
I am currently researching an organization called the Maryland Institute of Research. It publishes two open-access journals, the International Journal of Business and Social Research, which began in...
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OA Publisher Gratuitously Uses Other Groups’ Logos to Feign Legitimacy
One of the tricks that the International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR) uses to convince authors that it is legitimate is to flash logos of legitimate organizations on its main page. There...
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A Journal That Has Everything Wrong with It
We recently added the journal International Journal of Applied Research & Studies to our list of stand-alone predatory journals. This journal stands out because it uses as many tricks, unethical...
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Shirley, You Jest
IJEST is the International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, published by ENGG Journals Publications in Madras, India. The site also lists an address in Singapore. The journal has...
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Copying Elsevier
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the people at Reed Elsevier ought to be very flattered by this imitation of their work. The picture above is from the homepage of the International...
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Science Target: Targeting Your Author Fees
Introducing one of the newest open-access publishers: Science Target. According to the publisher’s website, they are based in Ottawa, Ontario. Here is a screen grab from their “contact us” page:...
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Open-Access Publishing Pyramid Scheme
We learned recently about a scholarly publisher that appears to be operating like a pyramid scheme. The publisher is Simplex Academic Publishers, based in Tiruchengodu, India. It publishes five...
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Exposing Sketchy Faculty Publications: The Dirty Western
The Dirty Western is a blog that is exposing faculty members who have published in — and are taking academic credit for — crummy papers published in predatory journals. The blog has covered Western...
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Predatory Publishers are Abusing the ISO Logo
Trademark violation? The latest trend among some predatory publishers is to display the ISO (International Standards Organization) logo on their websites. They do this to make themselves look...
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Lambert Academic Publishing: A Must to Avoid
One of their dissertation covers, back (left) and front (right).Don’t be fooled. I receive many emails from all over the world complaining about LAP Lambert Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG. (This...
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ISP Boots Predatory Publisher for Spamming
Finally, some consequences for spamming. Nigeria-based International Research Journals is being cut off by its United States-based Internet service provider for spamming, a violation of the provider’s...
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Open Access Alcohol
Why the quotes around “peer reviewed”? Also note the typo: “Disease and addition.” Doesn’t add up. OA Alcohol is the title of one of 140 new medical-science journals launched recently by the brand-new...
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Large New OA Publisher Launches with 85 Journals
85 new journals all started at the same time. A brand-new open-access publisher has just appeared: Science and Education Publishing (SciEP). The publisher is launching with 85 new journals, the second...
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Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers (2nd edition)
In August 2012, I published the first edition of my Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers. I received many helpful comments and am now publishing a second edition of the work. I am...
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