I made an attempt to find correlation between different columns in the Excel file provided on the website. The most promising appeared to be tracing a correlation between the journals, which rejected or accepted the article, with their appearance at Beall's list - but after "substantial review".
Indeed, "substantial review" means that a referee did his job properly and identified the supposed error. Then it is up to editor to say the Final word. Only this case may point to a "predatory" publisher who must appear at Beall's list.
Let me immediately report that this correlation appeared to be inconclusive, to say the least.
Here is a table for this article:
Beall DOAJ
Accepted 9 8
Rejected 6 12
(There are two "mixed" cases where journals are listed as both Beall and DOAJ but rejected the paper; they are not included here).
The most interesting cases are where after substantial review we see "rejected and Beall" (false positive case) or "accepted and DOAJ" (false negative).
There are two different ways to proceed.
1. "Rejection" means "innocent" journal (H0 null-hypothesis) while belonging to Beall's list is a "diagnose" (false positive) while "acceptance and not-Beall" is false negative.
Then both errors are very high, 33% each.
2. The identity "Beall = predator" is established H0 null hypothesis. Then rejection of the article by "Beall" journal is Type I error and acceptance by DOAJ journal is type II error.
Then both errors are very high, 40% each.
Overall, judging from this case being "Beall" does not give much confidence in the outcome. Nor one can guess "predatory" ("Beall") journal from this case alone.
Let me list several journals that represent the false positive case ("Beall" but rejected):
.........................................
Advances in Cancer:
Research & Treatment (?) |
International
Journal of Medical Biology (EGY, BEL)
Emerging Issues in
Medical Diagnosis and Treatment (CHN) |
|
Journal of Solid
Tumors (CAN)
World Journal of
Radiology (CHN) |
Pharmaceutical
Technology & Drug Research (IND) .......................................................
Is it the case to reconsider their "Beall" status?
|
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Ari Belenkiy
Statistics Department
SFU
Canada