From: Bill Cohen <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 10:31:47 -0400

On 5/30/13 12:04 AM, Bill Cohen wrote:

Respectfully, the journal Editor is employed by the Publisher.

The Publisher is ultimately held accountable for the quality of
his/her journals. The Publisher's success or failure rides on this.

To reverse this and argue that the Publisher is somehow not
accountable for, or distanced from,  the quality, professionalism, and
behavior of his/her journal Editors, does not make sense.

Sandy's argument is logical not only in the journal arena but
mandatory in business practice in general.

The usually appreciated statement about executive  accountability is
recapped below.

Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaM-prl6IYQ


On 5/29/13 9:42 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:

From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 08:22:56 +0400

Hi All

No ambiguity at all:

Peer-review: domain of the editor and reviewers.
Publishing: domain of the publisher.

Sandy's comment only reinforces the fact that, if the publisher feels
that the peer-review is of a too low standard, then the publisher can
complain.  I'm in favour of that.  But it does not say that any
publisher complains if the peer-review process is of too high
standard.  If there is evidence of that, then that is a different
matter entirely, but, until that is alleged, blaming the publisher for
bad peer-review is non-sensical.  Bad peer-review rests with the
editor.

This is particularly important because Beall's list makes a big deal
about the money earned by the OA commercial publishers.  (Naturally,
I'm excluding the multi-millions profit made by the "non-predatory"
commercial publishers).  In order for this earning to be significant
in the discussion of peer-review and quality, it would be necessary to
demonstrate that:

- the publisher performs peer-review and/or lowers the level of
peer-review expected from the editor, or

- the editor in charge of peer-review receives financial benefit from
any paper accepted.

Until that can be demonstrated, moaning about the fact that OA
commercial publishers are trying to make a profit is strange.  What
part of "commercial" is not clear?  Commercial Non-OA publishers are
also not charities.  Their goal is to make a profit.  I would be
surprised if all OA commercial publishers also weren't trying to make
a profit.  Profit is not the issue.  It's the methods, and these needs
to be described properly, backed up with facts, not vague unease and
innuendo.

Regards

Ken

------

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman