From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 17:14:52 +0000

I am glad that Stefan Harnad has found the statement from Jeffrey. I was
about to look for it. I would like to add a few points.

I do not think any of the publishers on the Beall list are members of OASPA
which has standards that one would expect any OA publisher to accept.

The idea that librarians are out to smear OA is really not true. The great
majority of librarians are very positive about OA and always have been even
if now they are more worried about the realities than they use to be now
that realities are more pressing. Look at ARL for example.

Jeffrey has in fact often sought advice and at least one publisher has been
withdrawn from his list as a result of advice.

I have recently been interviewing a whole range of academics of all stages
in their academic career and have been surprised by the opposition of or
cautious views about most of them seem to have about OA journals. Some are
(indirectly) influenced by a certain blog. Most however are just fed up with
the invitations to write for, referee for or go on the editorial boards of
publishers Jeffrey has marked out: these come at least once a week.

Experienced academics know to delete these invitations: inexperienced
academics in emerging countries may not know that this is the right
response. OK there were predatory journals in the days when the subscription
model was more or less the only game in down but e-mail was either not
happening or in its infancy and it was expensive to send out lots of letters
(remember them!)

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 01:06:13 -0400

Since neither Jan Velterop nor Ken Masters seem to have looked at Jeffrey
Beall's published criteria, I append them below:

http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/30/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-ac
cess-publishers-2nd-edition/

Stevan Harnad

**********************

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 especially grateful to
Bill Cohen and Dr. Michael W. Firmin for their helpful suggestions. Also,
thanks to all the those who left helpful comments or who sent in emails with
suggestions.  This document is also available as a PDF.

Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers

By Jeffrey Beall

2nd edition / December 1, 2012

1. Complete an analysis of the publisher's content, practices, and websites
according to ethical standards established by membership organizations.

A. Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) Code of Conduct

B. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct for Journal
Publishers [PDF]

C. International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers
(STM) Code of Conduct

2. Complete an analysis of the publisher's content, practices, and
websites: contact the publisher if necessary, read statements from the
publisher's authors about their experiences with the publisher, and
determine whether the publisher commits any of the following practices
(below) that are known to be committed by predatory publishers.

n.b. Some journals publish independently of any publisher, but in most
cases, we evaluate journals that are part of a publisher's fleet. The
practices described below are meant to apply both to independent journals
and to publishers with multiple journals in their portfolios.

[SNIP]