From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:06:31 +0100

I think the reason that we are 'ignoring' the quality issues that
Jeffrey Beall is concerned about is because there is currently no
evidence that this is actually a function of business model.  Yes,
there are some very poor open access journals, but there are also some
very poor subscription-based journals.  There are also excellent OA
journals just as there are excellent subscription-based titles.  And
the vast majority (well over two-thirds) of OA papers where an author
payment has been made have been published in titles covered by JCR
and/or SCOPUS.  (See the paper of David Solomon and Bo-Christer Bjork
- http://www.openaccesspublishing.org/apc2/)  Now, these may not be
perfect metrics of excellence, but they should go some way to
reassuring us that this is not a huge problem.

Jeffrey Beall is, of course, wrong about the definition of gold OA -
he claims that 'By definition, gold open-access publishers levy an
article processing charge (APC).'  There is nothing in the definition
of gold OA that dictates how the publisher covers their costs.  APC
may by the most common method (in terms of number of papers, not
number of journals), but it is not the only method.

David Prosser


On 12 Jul 2012, at 20:23, LIBLICENSE wrote:

> 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