From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 20:47:35 +0000

Jeffrey has also written articles on this in The Charleston Advisor which
have been reviewed carefully by the editorial group. My own take is that
something is intrinsically wrong with the Open Access model, which leads to
behaviour of the sort he describes by unscrupulous publishers. There were
and probably are publishers in print which do not have proper arrangements
for peer review. As I see it, the problem is that if one works from a low
cost base it is very easy to start a whole tranche of journals which may not
have a proper editorial structure (editorial board members advertised just
because they have been asked and not accepted) and are not committed to
building a sustainable journal list. The easiness is the problem.

I understand that OASPA (the organisation of Open Access Publishers) does not
take these people into membership and expels them when they are exposed.
Unfortunately these publishers are rather good at marketing their services
and at the first glance can look serious. Many academics especially in
countries which are emerging into the international scholarly communication
network can be naive and spend money on publishing papers which alas will
bring them no credit or "impact".

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 07:39:36 -0500

Yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Education has a long piece on 'predatory
OA journals', with a focus on the work of a Colorado librarian who
monitors the business.

Do list readers think this is a significant problem? A growing problem?

http://chronicle.com/article/Predatory-Online-Journals/131047/?key=HD10d1VhN
HdJbCsyZTgRMj4EOyFoZk0hYn9JPS8pbl9cEQ%3D%3D

Extract:

The practice of charging authors to have their work published is not
inherently problematic, said Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the
University of Colorado at Denver, who tracks open-access publishers­
that operate on an author-pays model.

"There is nothing wrong with the model itself," Mr. Beall said, citing
author-pays publishers he considers to be legitimate, like the Public
Library of Science (PLoS). But, he said, because the author-pays
system features an inherent conflict of interest—publishers make more
money if they accept more articles—it is ripe for abuse.

Such abuse is becoming more prevalent, Mr. Beall said. On his blog
Scholarly Open Access, he keeps a running list of what he calls
"predatory" open-access publishers. Mr. Beall said he uncovers one new
predatory journal or publishing company about every week, and his list
now totals more than 50 publishers and individual journals.

Mr. Beall defines a "predatory" publisher as one whose main goal is to
generate profits rather than promote academic scholarship. Such
publishers, he said, "add little value to scholarship, pay little
attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-by-night,
unsustainable business models."

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.