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

>From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:07:58 +0100

>The questions Ken Masters suggests are very sensible. Wouldn't it be
>fair if they were also be asked of Jeffrey Beall when he puts a
>publisher on his list, effectively alleging that those publishers are
>'predatory'? Are they? Are they being satisfactorily answered?

>From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:09:12 +0400
>
>Serious allegations indeed.  Perhaps some questions to put to him are:
>
>- Do you have actual evidence beyond your own opinions?  (Not that
>one's own opinions are necessarily invalid; it's just good to know
>their basis, beyond speculation).
>
>- Has this evidence (and your conclusions) been verified by other
>independent professionals?
>
>- Is the process by which you have arrived at your conclusions based
>on established and professionally-recognised procedures, or have you
>determined these yourself?
>
>- As the allegations carry possible implications of criminality, has
>any of this evidence been shown to law-enforcement officials?  If so,
>what was their reaction; if not, why not?
>
>- Do you have any conflict of interest in the matter (Not necessarily
>financial - conflict of interest can come in many forms, including
>status and recognition by the various parties involved, and by the
>broader professional community).

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-access-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.


Editor and Staff

* The publisher’s owner is identified as the editor of all the
journals published by the organization.

* No single individual is identified as the journal’s editor.

* The journal does not identify a formal editorial / review board.

* No academic information is provided regarding the editor, editorial
staff, and/or review board members (e.g., institutional affiliation).

* Evident data exist showing that the editor and/or review board
members do not possess academic expertise to reasonably qualify them
to be publication gatekeepers in the journal’s field.

* Two or more journals have duplicate editorial boards (i.e., same
editorial board for more than one journal).

* The journals have an insufficient number of board members, have
concocted editorial boards (made up names), include scholars on an
editorial board without their knowledge or permission, have board
members who are prominent researchers but exempt them from any
contributions to the journal except the use of their names and/or
photographs.

Business Management

The publisher…

* Demonstrates a lack of transparency in publishing operations.

* Has no policies or practices for digital preservation.

*Depends on author fees as the sole and only means of operation with
no alternative, long-term business plan for sustaining the journal
through augmented income sources.

* Begins operations with a large fleet of journals, often using a
template to quickly create each journal’s home page.

* Provides insufficient information or hides information about author
fees, offering to publish an author’s paper and later sending a
previously-undisclosed invoice.

Integrity

* The name of a journal is incongruent with the journal’s mission.

* The name of a journal does not adequately reflect its origin (e.g.,
a journal with the word “Canadian” or “Swiss” in its name that has no
meaningful relationship to Canada or Switzerland).

* The journal falsely claims to have an impact factor, or uses some
made up measure (e.g. view factor), feigning international standing.

* The publisher sends spam requests for peer reviews to scholars
unqualified to review submitted manuscripts.

* The publisher falsely claims to have its content indexed in
legitimate abstracting and indexing services or claims that its
content is indexed in resources that are not abstracting and indexing
services

* The publisher dedicates insufficient resources to preventing and
eliminating author misconduct, to the extent that the journal or
journals suffer from repeated cases of plagiarism, self-plagiarism,
image manipulation, and the like.

* The publisher asks the corresponding author for suggested reviewers
and the publisher subsequently uses the suggested reviewers without
sufficiently vetting their qualifications or authenticity. (This
protocol also may allow authors to create faux online identities in
order to review their own papers).

Other

A predatory publisher may ...

* Publish papers already published in other venues/outlets without
providing appropriate credits

* Use language claiming to be a “leading publisher” even though the
publisher may only be a startup or a novice organization.

* Operate in a Western country chiefly for the purpose of functioning
as a vanity press for scholars in a developing country.

* Do minimal or no copyediting.

* Publish papers that are not academic at all, e.g. essays by laypeople or
obvious pseudo-science.

* Have a “contact us” page that only includes a web form, and the
publisher hides or does not reveal its location

The following practices are considered to be reflective of poor
journal standards and, while they do not equal predatory criteria,
potential authors should give due consideration to these items prior
to manuscript submissions:

* The publisher copies “authors guidelines” verbatim (or with minor
editing) from other publishers.

* The publisher lists insufficient contact information, including
contact information that does not clearly state the headquarters
location or misrepresents the headquarters location (e.g., through the
use of addresses that are actually mail drops).

* The publisher publishes journals that are excessively broad
(e.g.,Journal of Education) in order to attract more articles and gain
more revenue from author fees.

* The publisher publishes journals that combine two or more fields not
normally treated together (e.g., International Journal of Business,
Humanities and Technology).

* The publisher requires transfer of copyright and retains copyright
on journal content. Or the publisher requires the copyright transfer
upon submission of manuscript.

* The publisher has poorly maintained websites, including dead links,
prominent misspellings and grammatical errors on the website.

* The publisher makes unauthorized use of licensed images on their
website, taken from the open web, without permission or licensing from
the copyright owners.

* The publisher engages in excessive use of spam email to solicit
manuscripts or editorial board memberships

* The publishers’ officers use email addresses that end in .gmail.com,
yahoo.com some other free email supplier

* The publisher fails to state licensing policy information on
articles or shows lack of understanding of well-known OA journal
article licensing standards.

* The publisher lacks a published article retraction policy or
retracts articles without a formal statement; also the publisher does
not publish corrections or clarifications and does not have a policy
for these issues.

* The publisher does not use ISSN numbers, DOI numbers or uses them improperly.

* For the name of the publisher, the publisher uses names such as
“Network,” “Center,” “Association,” “Institute,” and the like when it
is only a publisher and does not meet the definition of the term used.

* The publisher has excessive advertising on its site to the extent
that it interferes with site navigation and content access.

* The publisher has no membership in industry associations and/or
intentionally fails to follow industry standards.

* The publisher includes links to legitimate conferences and
associations on its main website, as if to borrow from other
organizations’ legitimacy, and emblazon the new publisher with the
others’ legacy value.

* The publisher displays prominent statements that promise rapid
publication and/or unusually quick peer review.

* The publisher focuses on authors (not readers) and on getting their
fees at the expense of due quality, and offers few or no value adds to
readers such as RSS feeds, hotlinked references, or the like.

* The publisher creates a publishing operation that is set up and run
by a single individual who engages in rapacious entrepreneurial
behavior. The individual might have business administration
experience, and the site may have business journals but it also has
journals that are outside the experience of the entrepreneur or anyone
on staff.

* The publisher or its journals are not listed in standard periodical
directories or are not widely cataloged in library databases.

* The publisher copies or egregiously mimics journal titles from other
publishers.

* The publisher uses text on the publisher’s main page that describes
the open access movement and then foists the publisher as if the
publisher is active in fulfilling the movement’s values and goals.

* None of the members of a particular journal’s editorial board have
ever published an article in the journal.