From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 09:07:10 +0000
Alex,
Thanks for responding!
I agree that seeing scam journal APCs as a nuisance from a
macro-perspective does not necessarily reflect the reality of the
individual researcher that has been fooled into publishing in a scam
journal.
However, the average APC per article in scam journals lies at the
level of USD 178 (see Shen & Björk 2015,
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2) so for most authors the sum
will be manageable - as compared to the near-standard USD 3000 for an
OA article in a TA journal. For a researcher from the affluent west,
the major negative consequence of being tricked into publishing in a
scam journal is that an otherwise publishable (after re-work,
presumably) manuscript is in effect "destroyed" by it's being
published in the scam journal. This could also constitute a black mark
on the author's CV and publishing record.
Shen & Björk also note that they do not see authors necessarily as
unknowing victims of these journals, but in many cases as knowing
users of the service they provide for their careers, especially in
countries that generally put an emphasis on publishing in
"international" journals but do not bother to monitor the actual
quality of these journals. Seen in this light, much publishing in scam
journals stems from perverse evaluation schemes in academia and
research.
Best,
Jan Erik
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From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2017 20:38:25 -0400
It's easy to characterize scam journal APCs as nuisances from a
library point of view. But to the faculty member who has no
institutional resources to help pay those charges and very limited
resources of their own, and who perhaps is also unaware that the
journal in question is of very low quality, predatory APCs might
constitute a lot more than a nuisance.
On the other hand, there would at best be extremely limited incentives
to the "super-profits" to create journals as poor as those created by
the crooks perpetrating OA scams. If you're selling a suite of
journals and the world--meaning faculty/researchers and
librarians--figures it out, then it becomes that much easier to do
away with the entire package. There is at least some semblance of a
self-correcting mechanism in place. No such thing exists for the OA
scammers, who, if a journal is discredited, can just start a new one
with a legitimate-sounding name. You're quite right that the impact
on the library budget is minimal, almost nothing, but especially for
scholars in cash-poor countries or institutions I suspect the impact
can be much larger than a nuisance.
Alex Holzman
On Sun, Aug 6, 2017 at 7:31 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2017 06:27:18 +0000
>
> Thanks for reading my post, Rick - and responding to it!
>
> Of course, there are still single journal purchases around, but the
> large money is spent on packages. And packaging can motivate sellers
> to create low-level (to say the least) journals to stuff the package
> with. I was responding to a point on traditional publishers, as
> opposed to OA publishers, not having any motivation to create
> low-quality jornals – in my opinion this motive exists, especially for
> package sellers.
>
> The financial burden: A matter of scale here. Of course, APCs to scam
> journals present a burden, but I have never seen any calculations
> showing this burden to be near the level of burden the super-profits
> of major publishers are. Super-profits are burdens, APCs to scam
> publishers are more on the level of financial nuisances. So for "the
> burden", stress the "the" to make it "the important burden". If you
> have any fresh numbers on the total of APCs paid to scam publishers,
> I'd be happy to get a link. It merits close following.
>
> Best,
> Jan Erik
>
> Jan Erik Frantsvåg
> Open Access Adviser
> The University Library
> UiT The Arctic University of Norway
> phone +47 77 64 49 50
> e-mail [log in to unmask]
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