From: "Sowards, Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2017 14:48:27 +0000

Good summary in The New Yorker today too, as you may already have
seen: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/paging-dr-fraud-the-fake-publishers-that-are-ruining-science?mbid=synd_digg
.

In our library, we had a recent in-house conversation about how to
spot predatory journals. In working up a list of "clues" to share with
our campus faculty, we ran across an indexing and abstracting service
that has some of the usual hallmarks: fees, intriguing promises, etc.
Can it be that there are now also predatory indexes, that serve
predatory journals? The one we looked at is International Scientific
Indexing, or "ISI" (which of course is reminiscent of a legitimate I&A
service). From their site a:

http://www.isindexing.com/isi/payment.php

"After you pay the indexing fee your journal is indexed with in 4
hours after the approval of our board..." Fast work.

Now that Beall's list is gone, is there any utility in consulting the
list of 2,094 journals at "ISI"?
http://www.isindexing.com/isi/journals.php. Surprisingly, I've
actually heard of the publisher for a few of the journals listed
there.

Steven Sowards
Associate Director for Collections
Michigan State University Libraries
366 W. Circle Drive
East Lansing MI 48824


-----Original Message-----
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2017 12:41:18 -0700

In this very interesting article:

http://www.nature.com/news/predatory-journals-recruit-fake-editor-1.21662

. . . a group of four scholars at the University of Wrocław created a
completely fake profile for a purported scientist and then had her
submit application to hundreds of journals to join their editorial
boards.  "She" was not unsuccessful:

"We conceived a sting operation and submitted a fake application for
an editor position to 360 journals, a mix of legitimate titles and
suspected predators. Forty-eight titles accepted. Many revealed
themselves to be even more mercenary than we had expected."

The article includes interesting comparisons of the differential
response from journals on the controversial (and now disappeared)
Beall's list, from journals in DOAJ, and JCR (Journal Citation
Reports) journals.  The need for money to change hands in some
irregular ways is a recurring but not universal theme.  Meanwhile the
non-existent scientist seems (I won't spoil the punch lines of the
article) assured of a prestigious and visible career.

Jim O'Donnell
Arizona State University