From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:01:47 +0100

Jeffrey Beall, a metadata librarian at the University of Colorado
Denver, maintains a list of what he calls “predatory publishers”. That
is, publishers who, as Beall puts it, “unprofessionally exploit the
gold open-access model for their own profit.” Amongst other things,
this can mean that papers are subjected to little or no peer review
before they are published.

Currently, Beall’s blog list of predatory publishers lists over 100
separate companies, and 38 independent journals. And the list is
growing by 3 to 4 new publishers each week.

Beall’s opening salvo against predatory publishers came in 2009, when
he published a review of the OA publisher Bentham Open for The
Charleston Advisor. Since then, he has written further articles on the
topic, and has been featured twice in The Chronicle of Higher
Education.

His work on predatory publishers has caused Beall to become seriously
concerned about the risks attached to gold OA. And he is surprised at
how little attention these risks get from the research community. As
he puts it, “I am dismayed that most discussions of gold open-access
fail to include the quality problems I have documented. Too many OA
commenters look only at the theory and ignore the practice. We must
‘maintain the integrity of the academic record’, and I am doubtful
that gold open-access is the best long-term way to accomplish that.”

An interview with Jeffrey Beall is available here:

http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-interviews-jeffrey-beall-university.html

Richard Poynder