From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 08:21:14 +0400

Hi All

To be fair to Beall, he is quite correct that nowhere does he say that
charging a fee only means that the publisher is predatory.  So why is
there the association and the confusion?  Because clarity is STILL
required on exactly what HAS made each publisher classified as
predatory.

What do we actually have?

- A list of publishers.

- A list of criteria.

- A non-specific link between the two.

- No indication of how many and which of those criteria are necessary
for a publisher to be classified as predatory.   (The methodology says
that it determines "whether the publisher commits ANY [my emphasis] of
the following practices (below) that are known to be committed by
predatory publishers.")

- No indication, for each publisher, of WHICH of the criteria have
been met for that publisher to be classified as predatory.

We are merely asking for full information disclosure, and the
information that we are asking for is really simple, and already
exists, it's just not available to us.  Although I would liked to have
seen more details of his methodology, his page at:
http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/30/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-access-publishers-2nd-edition/
indicates that he has performed a complete analysis of each publisher,
including practices, etc. As he has also commented on the quality of
the articles, he will have done a detailed study of the articles.  As
a good researcher, Beall would have documented all of that, so
everything exists.  All we asking for is to see it.

The best way to show it would be:

1.  A summary in grid format, similar to the kind of grid that one
finds in a meta-analysis, listing the publisher, and then indicating
which of the criteria have been met, when the study was performed,
etc.

2.  Further details for each publisher.  For example, if a publisher
is accused of publishing rubbish, then identifiy exactly which
journals and which articles were investigated and what it was that led
to this conclusion, demonstrating that it was not merely the
cherry-picking of a few bad articles, but shows a general trend across
many journals and many articles within those journals.  Until that is
done, simply saying that a publisher has low quality articles, or that
some articles are very short, or that it also publishes non-research
articles, is meaningless - many respectable journals do this, and
every publisher has had a poor journal along the way.

3.  Given that many of the criticisms are journal-specific (e.g. not
identifying the editor, the review board, etc), give this information
for each journal.

This might sound like a lot of work, but actually, it's not - because
the hard work, the investigation and analysis and documentation, has
already been done.

Any researcher, including Beall, knows that this is how results are
routinely displayed.

Ideally, it should then be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, in
the same way as anybody submits their research to a peer-reviewed
journal.  If that is too much hassle (Beall might not be interested in
going the whole publishing route), then put all that information, like
that, on his site.

Why would I like to see that information?  Many reasons, but the first
that come to mind are:

1. The information already exists - Beall has done all the hard work
already, and had to document it in order to draw up his list in the
first place.  There is no reason to keep it hidden.

2. It will clear up the confusion about what actually makes a
publisher "predatory."

3. It will allow individual publishers to see the main criticisms, and
then clean up their acts, and request a re-review.  Imagine what an
achievement it would be if all these publishers were to clean up their
acts and be accepted as bona fide publishers?  (Assuming that is
desirable).

4.  Allow individual authors, researchers, librarians to make an
informed choice.

5. Philosophically, given that a major criticism of these journals
appears to be lack of independent peer-review, this would be Beall
demonstrating his approach.

6.  Personally, for Beall, it would have the added benefit of
preventing frivolous lawsuits, because there could not be any vague,
non-scientific interpretation - everything could be easily verifiable.
 His list would then not be defended only by freedom of speech, but by
obvious 100% accuracy.

Is this too much to ask?  Is this considered "baiting" the list, as I
have been accused of before?  If it is, I apologise, but, until this
is done, then will be confusion over the issue.

Disclaimer: Editor of a journal published by ISPUB and on Beall's list.

Regards

Ken

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education