David Publishing: Flipping Its Model

February 29, 2012
David Publishers

Part of the David Publishing web page. After clicking on "help," a user is show a box that says "help" and nothing more.

This publisher is an enigma to me.

David Publishing made my 2012 list of predatory open-access publishers. I wrote:

“Although this publisher purports to be headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, United States, it actually appears to operate out of China. The home page shows a view of the Libertyville Industrial Park, the supposed home of the operation, as if to prove it operates in the U.S.”

Now, the picture of the Libertyville Industrial Park is still there, but it rotates with a stock photo of three diverse, scholarly-looking people. This operation seems to have abandoned Libertyville, as the contact us information now lists an El Monte, California address¹. Also, the site was completely down for a couple months between December 2011 and February 2012.

More importantly, the publisher’s model seems to have changed from open access to toll access. All the content (except for the article abstracts) are behind a pay wall. And strangely, it may be continuing to charge author fees, for I found this (unidiomatic) statement on a submission form: “8. Please confirm to pay for the publication fee for the delivering article.” If this is all true, then it would be the first toll access publisher I’ve heard of that also charges author fees. Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments | Scholarly Open-Access Publishers | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jeffrey Beall

World Science Publisher: A “Serials Crisis”

February 24, 2012
World Science Publisher -- a selected snip from its homepage

A part of World Science Publisher's main web page, February 24, 2012.

Recently I browsed through the list of journal titles that use the open-source software provided by Open Journal Systems. Naturally, I was looking for publishers that abuse the open-access publishing model, and not surprisingly, I found a few.

One I found is World Science Publisher. Its tag line is “Make easy publication [sic].” The journal claims that “It has branches in USA, UK, and Hongkong [sic].” At the bottom of each of its web pages it says, “Copyright © 2012 World Science Publisher, United States.” Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Scholarly Open-Access Publishers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jeffrey Beall

The Open-Access Movement Reaches a New Low: Greener Journals

February 18, 2012
Greener Journals

Part of publisher Greener Journals main web page.

Greener Journals is a scholarly open-access publisher based in Lagos, Nigeria. The firm publishes twenty open access journals, mostly in the sciences.

The publisher’s website boasts bright colors but uses unidiomatic English filled with grammatical errors. For example, according to its website, the firm’s mission is, “We Provides [sic] the international community free access to research information void of financial, legal or technical constraint.”

Greener Journals uses the gold (author pays) model to support the publication and preservation of its scholarly publications. Authors, upon acceptance of their articles, pay a $300 “handling fee” to help the publisher “handle” the articles.

The publisher doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a publisher and a journal: “Greener Journals (GJ) is an open access journal [sic] that provides rapid publication (monthly) of articles in all areas of the subject [sic].”

A link on the publisher’s main page leads to another page that describes open access publishing. Much of the text on that page is lifted from other websites.

The publisher’s name, Greener Journals, is clearly an attempt to attract authors who respect the green movement. Moreover the graphics on the main page include a stylized drawing of a cow on a green pasture under a blue sky.

Few of the journals have any content, and those that do have only a very few articles. This publisher began operations in 2011. Below is a list of Greener Journals’ journal portfolio.

I cannot understand why any serious researcher would pay to have their scholarly articles published by this ridiculous publisher.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Scholarly Open-Access Publishers | Permalink
Posted by Jeffrey Beall

A Totally Bogus Stand-Alone Open-Access Journal

February 15, 2012
International Journal of Engineering Research

The award that IJERA created and awarded to itself.

IJERA stands for International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications. This online, open-access journal claims to be peer-reviewed. Unlike most other questionable open-access journals, this one stands alone. It lists no publisher and is the only journal on its website.

We must congratulate IJERA, for it won the “Outstanding Engineering Journal” award, conferred by JourRank, in December, 2011.

The only problem with this award is that there is no such thing as JourRank; it is an invention of the journal’s proprietor. The bogus award is announced prominently on the journal’s main web page.

Because authors, not libraries and other subscribers, are the “customers” of gold open-access journals, journal publishers must market themselves to potential authors. So they create  bogus awards to attract article submissions, and later author fees.

One of the “advantages” of publishing in IJERA is their quick turnaround time for reviewing article submissions. In fact the journal claims that acceptance decisions are made “within 4-6 days from the date of manuscript submission.”

Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments | Scholarly Open-Access Publishers | Permalink
Posted by Jeffrey Beall

Two New Additions to the List of Questionable Publishers

February 7, 2012

I have just  two new publishers to my list of questionable publishers.

The first is Thavan E ACT International Journals. Thavan E ACT is short for “Thangavel Vannathal Educational and Charitable Trust.” Based in Madras, India, this publisher offers twelve journals that cover the breadth of human knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Scholarly Open-Access Publishers | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Jeffrey Beall