From: Charlie Rapple <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 08:06:22 +0100 Hi Jim, et al, I agree with your view on the irrelevance or ineffectiveness of finger-pointing and cluck-clucking. The new Think. Check. Submit. campaign seems like a practical and realistic attempt to start trying to address the problem with education rather than exhortation. Its launch (yesterday) coincides with another recently published study which, reflecting your point about large numbers of new authors from developing countries, finds that three quarters of authors in the predatory publications it studied were from Asia and Africa. I just posted more thoughts on Think. Check. Submit. in the Scholarly Kitchen: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/10/01/think-check-submit-how-to-have-trust-in-your-publisher/ The article I mention is: Shen, C. & Björk, B.. (2015). ‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics. BMC Medicine. 13:230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2 Think. Check. Submit. is at: http://thinkchecksubmit.org It doesn’t (yet?) start to address some of the underlying challenges i.e. the pressures to publish and the market this creates for “predatory" journals, but I see both TCS and the Coalition for Responsible Publishing Resources (http://www.rprcoalition.org) as evidence of a new wave of practical action and outreach. All the best, Charlie. Charlie Rapple Co-Founder | Kudos www.growkudos.com [log in to unmask] On 2 Oct 2015, at 00:41, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2015 07:14:45 -0700 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/01/study-finds-huge-increase-articles-published-predatory-journals The debate over the relative numbers and the application of the 'predatory' label will continue, of course, but two things seem clear: (1) when the bills are paid by parties interested in increasing the number of articles published and lowering the quality, the system will inevitably produce more lower quality articles -- how many is debatable and what to do about it likewise; (2) it's an accident of history that the implementation of that model of publishing comes at a moment when large numbers of new players are entering the market from developing countries looking for places to publish their articles, but this accident increases the new pressure on the system. My point is to suggest that finger-pointing and cluck-clucking and exhortations to virtuous behavior are probably irrelevant. Real and important facts are changing in the way we do scientific publishing and we should recognize those and plan systemically for ways to mitigate a problem that will not be wished away. How can we better insulate peer review from the financial incentives that press for easier acceptance of more? Jim O'Donnell ASU