On pharmaceuticals.
Need to publish an article quickly? The Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology can make you a published author in a matter of days.
According to its homepage, the “Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology (AJPST) is an international peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal, scheduled to appear bi-annual [sic] and serve as a means for scientific information exchange in the international pharmaceutical forum.”
In fact it is a low-quality vanity press that only aims to make easy money from desperate or unwary researchers.
It’s published by a firm called Pharma Intelligence, a company that brags it’s the “world’s leading publisher of science and health information” (not true).
Pharma Intelligence publishes 26 low-quality journals and is based in Chennai, India. I think it also publishes a bunch of standalone megajournals that do not carry the Pharma Intelligence brand.
One-day peer review
The company is currently spamming scholarly authors and offering a one-day peer review period, followed by a two-day wait to get the paper published. So you can submit your scholarly paper on Monday and have it published by the end of the week.
One might think that scholars would avoid such an obviously fake journal, but the issues are full of papers. The most recent issue, volume 2015 issue 4, has 14 articles in it, so far.
The journal claims an impact factor too, declaring, “Scientific Journal Impact Factor Value for 2012 SJIF 2012 = 3.997”
Hat tip: Dr. Janusz Mierczynski
I do not know what is their poison but they definitely love colors!
First, I love that one of their site tabs is labeled: ‘Instructtion to Author.’ If you click on the tab, they do spell ‘instruction’ correctly on the actual page, but it’s definitely a turnoff.
Second, I decided to take a quick look at the types of articles they published. I randomly chose vol. 5, issue 15 of 2015 to examine. One article in particular caught my eye: “Intercropping of Ayurvedic herbs in the management of diabetes- a lifestyle disease.” I opened the PDF, googled a few of its phrases, and found that some of their definitions appeared to overlap with those from other sources. Are these considered common definitions in the field (such that they would not need to be cited) or was this possibly a copy and paste job? (I did only investigate one paper, so perhaps the others are less questionable?)
Example 1:
Article version-
“Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Hyperglycemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.”
World Health Organization’s fact sheet-
(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs312/en/)
“Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.”
Example 2:
Article version-
“Lifestyle diseases (also sometimes called diseases of longevity or diseases of civilization interchangeably) are diseases that appear to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer. They include Alzheimer’s disease, Arthritis, Atherosclerosis, Asthma, some kinds of Cancer, Chronic liver disease or Cirrhosis, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Type 2 diabetes, Heart disease, Metabolic syndrome, Chronic renal failure, Osteoporosis, Stroke, Depression and Obesity.”
“Diet and lifestyle are major factors thought to influence susceptibility to many diseases. Drug abuse, tobacco smoking, and alcohol drinking, as well as a lack of exercise may also increase the risk of developing certain diseases, especially later in life.”
Wikipedia-
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_disease)
“Lifestyle diseases (also sometimes called diseases of longevity or diseases of civilization interchangeably) are diseases that appear to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer. They can include Alzheimer’s disease, Arthritis, atherosclerosis, asthma,cancer, chronic liver disease or cirrhosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, chronic renal failure, osteoporosis, stroke, depression and obesity.”
“Diet and lifestyle are major factors thought to influence susceptibility to many diseases. Drug abuse, tobacco smoking, and alcohol drinking, as well as a lack of exercise may also increase the risk of developing certain diseases, especially later in life.”
Good catch. Here’s a definition of ‘plagiarism’: it means ‘AJPST’
I appreciate the work you are doing; making authors aware of those who are bent on destroying the academic world because of greed. I once sent.an article to asian academic research associates, my article was accepted for publication with all the errors. Again how can one check a journals ranking knowing fully well that those lof us in the third world only have obsolete equipment that those in developed world had used thirty or fifty years back.
Got Invitation to be a member of Editorial Board from a new publisher. How is your idea about this journal, Dr Jeff? The email attached:
Dear Dr. xxxx,
Exploratory Research and Hypothesis in Pharmacology (ERHP) publishes original exploratory research articles and state-of-the-art reviews that focus on novel findings and the most recent advances that support new hypotheses in pharmacology. ERHP covers topics on drug research, development and applications. The exploratory research published in ERHP may not necessarily be comprehensive and conclusive, but the study design must be solid, the methodologies must be reliable, the results must be true, and the hypothesis must be conceivable and justifiable based on evidence. The journal will be launched in 2015. For more information about ERHP, please visithttp://www.xiahepublishing.com/a/Journals/20140124/17.html .
Based on your significant contributions to the field of pharmacology and medicine, I am honored to invite you to join our editorial team as a member of Editorial Board. The duties are briefly described below:
1. Review manuscripts when invited;
2. Actively recruit and/or contribute manuscripts;
3. Advise on the journals development.
Your privileges if you become an editorial member include:
1. Access to the most recent research in medicine
2. Priority to publish your manuscripts in journals from Xia & He Publishing Ltd.
3. Permanent waiver of publication charges in journals from Xia & He Publishing Ltd.
4. Opportunity to highlight recent publications from any Xia & He Publishing Ltd on the publisher’s website
If you accept my invitation, please choose your preferred role, complete the attached file, and send it with your recent CV with a list of your publications to me by email at your earliest convenience.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the journal and the roles. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you.
With kind regards,
Editor Office
Exploratory Research and Hypothesis in Pharmacology
Email: ERHP@xhpublishing.com
I’ve analyzed this publisher with help from a colleague. I found it to be borderline and therefore did not add it to my list. I will monitor it, so I appreciate this reminder. It clearly is not a strong start. I would not want my grandmother to publish here.
[…] peer review in a day? No problem, says this journal (via Jeffrey […]
http://www.arpgweb.com/?ic=contents&id=26
New publication fee “Modification/After Publication = USD 50 “
One of the journals from North India sent me an article for review and it was trash. I refused the review politely. After few days a spam email that was apparently written by me and said thanks for sending me the article for review. Then on the same day another email falsely from my account even sends the review back. To this the chief editor replies thanks for reviewing the article
The above two emails had gmail notification that these emails may not have been sent by the sender.
Unfortunately, there are so-called “serious” journals which have a similar politics. Look for example to Facies (Springer, IF around 1.4), with an issue (2013; vol. 59, is. 4) with papers “received 16 July-accepted 18 July” or “received 20 June-accepted 21 June etc.).
Re fake reviews:
A recent PhD with whom I am acquainted was quite excited when his/her (I’m trying to make this as anonymous as possible) article was accepted in the International Journal of Applied Science and Technology (IJAST) with no revisions whatsoever (certainly unusual!). Here are the two reviewers’ comments:
REVIEWER 1
This paper will undoubtedly contribute to the existing field of research. This is a timely research. The paper is organized, especially in presenting the consistent thoughts. This paper can be published in its present form.
REVIEWER 2
The research is informative and based on sound concepts. There is a good consistency in the paper. It follows the basic principles of a good research. No mentionable flaw has been found in the paper. I would like to recommend this paper to publish in IJAST.
Although I believe it is hardly necessary to point it out, these comments pertain to absolutely nothing specific in the article and could be used to comment (albeit superficially) on any paper in any journal. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if many authors of papers submitted to the publisher of IJAST receive exactly the same reviews.