From: Michael Mabe <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:12:41 +0100 List members might be interested to know that STM takes the issue of unprofessional behaviour very seriously. As the leading international trade body for academic and professional publishers we strive for the highest professional standards in the publishing industry. We vet every candidate for membership generally and with reference to our Code of Conduct. We have turned down a number of recent applications where we felt candidates did not yet correspond to the standards that authors, readers and customers should reasonably expect. We do not discriminate over business models and have open access publishers as members as well as those using non open access models or a mixture. I do think it important that in discussing this issue we stick to clear objective criteria like those listed in Ina Smith's post, although I would respectfully suggest membership of STM as a criterion as well! Best, Michael Michael A Mabe Chief Executive Officer International Association of STM Publishers Prama House, 267 Banbury Road OXFORD, OX2 7HT, UK E-mail: [log in to unmask] Web: www.stm-assoc.org -----Original Message----- From: "Armbruster, Chris" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 03:19:54 -0800 A few comments 1. The anecdotal evidence collected suggests that the problem exists and is growing. The perception that you must 'publish or perish' may drive scholars to submit to (new) publishers/journals without vetting them. Moreover, some publishers/journals seem to be faking their credentials - making it hard for the unsuspecting scholar to detect the scam easily. Importantly and urgently, a more thorough investigation is needed. 2. Open access advocates and their organizations (e.g. OASPA, DOAJ, SPARC, KE) should be most interested to establish criteria and evidence for respectable open access publishing. The whole business may suffer heavy damage if there are more 'predatory' open access journals than real ones. 3. The above points are reinforced by noting that Jeffrey Beall last December had a watch list (Hindawi, MedKnow Publication, PAGEPress, Versita Open) - much disputed by commentators (http://metadata.posterous.com/tag/predatoryopenaccessjournals) but that this list seems to have been dropped from the new blog (without explanation) and substituted by a new list to be examined (http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/03/07/publishers-to-examine/). Clearly, one individual alone cannot establish criteria, cases and evidence. Chris Armbruster