From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:04:44 +0000


In an article published in The Charleston Review in July 2010, Jeffrey
Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, described
OMICS Publishing Group as a predatory Open Access publisher. “Having a
large number of titles, as does the OMICS Publishing Group, is typical
of predatory Open-Access publishers,” he wrote. “Also typical is each
journal's broad coverage. By offering 68 titles each with a broad
coverage, this publisher is tacitly saying it will publish anything.”

Is Beall’s characterisation of OMICS fair? Founder and managing
director of OMICS Dr Srinu Babu Gedela insists it is not. “We believe
the peer review process is very important … I am confident about the
quality of the review process used in OMICS’ journals.”

Nevertheless, OMICS has published at least one article that even OMICS
itself accepts should never have appeared in a peer-reviewed journal.

There have also been complaints that OMICS clones the names of other
publishers’ journals, and on one occasion copied text verbatim from a
competitor’s web site. This too Gedela denies. These incidents, he
insists, were simply mistakes, and OMICS corrected the situation as
soon as the problem was drawn to its attention.

A further complaint is that the publisher has been bombarding
researchers with email invitations to join editorial boards, submit
papers to its journals (of which there are now 200), and attend
conferences. OMICS does not deny that it uses bulk email services. Nor
does it plan to stop doing so. Indeed, Gedela implies, these
activities are likely to increase in line with the growth of its
business. “As we plan to organise 50 conferences in 2012, we will be
mailing invitations to researchers frequently.”

OMICS is just one of a growing number of controversial OA publishers:
Beall’s list of “predatory” publishers has now reached 28, and
continues to grow.

But while many researchers are quick to complain about the activities
of these publishers, should not the research community accept some
responsibility for the current excesses of the OA Gold Rush?

After all, OMICS says that it has now recruited 20,000 researchers to
its editorial boards, and we can assume the other OA publishers are
proving equally successful. This suggests that for every researcher
decrying the activities of these publishers others are facilitating
them. Are the latter not concerned that they are conspiring in the
email bombardment of their colleagues? Do they not care that some of
the journals on whose editorial boards they sit appear to be
publishing papers that have had inadequate or no peer review? Are they
not worried that some of these publishers may be engaging in dubious
business practices?

So what is the background to the complaints levelled against OMICS
Publishing Group, what are the details of those complaints, and how
exactly does the company respond to them? Read on to find out more ...

 http://bit.ly/vRIEGa

Richard Poynder