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Comment on Noto-are version of open access- read the fine print and think spam by UniMelb Copyright blog » Caveat emptor

UniMelb Copyright blog » Caveat emptor — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:45:42 +0000

[...] didn’t have to search too hard before I found this blog post Noto-are version of open access- read the fine print and think spam analysing Noto-are and it’s worth a read. From a copyright point of view, my main issues [...]

Comment on How to shed the predatory label? Open peer review! by T Scott

T Scott — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:17:49 +0000

Lipman’s brilliant and has done a fantastic job w/ NCBI, but it doesn’t seem to me that directing NLM would appeal to him. I don’t know him personally (we’ve met, but that’s it), so I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like the right fit.

Comment on How to shed the predatory label? Open peer review! by cjgberg

cjgberg — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:15:05 +0000

Thank you for your comments, Scott. Do you think David Lipman is the heir to take over the leadership of NLM? Do i jinx him by even mentioning it?

Comment on How to shed the predatory label? Open peer review! by T Scott

T Scott — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:51:51 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of open peer review, but despite its proponents, it’s never gotten much traction. The JAMA peer review conferences (held every 5 years — I think there’s one coming up in the fall) have reported a few studies comparing open to traditional peer review but have failed to show any clear advantage to the quality of the reviewing. Because of that, people who are concerned about the potential negatives of open review are not likely to change their minds. I raised it with the JMLA Editorial Board years ago when I was the editor and they were firmly against it. Elsevier recently announced that they were going to be experimenting with open review for one of their journals. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

A couple of comments about Beall’s list. While there are undoubtedly some true scam artists among the publishers he lists, his criteria are very fuzzy and don’t discriminate between truly predatory journals and journals that may be well meant but are simply of poor quality. There have always been plenty of lousy journals that claim to have high standards and be peer reviewed but that on closer examination are of pretty low quality. (The old Haworth journals, for example, suffered from that). So I’m a little uncomfortable about the Beall list.

But you’re right about open access platforms making it much easier for people to start journals. In the subscription space, it was very hard to get a journal started, and to sustain it long enough to have a reasonable cash flow. Now it’s relatively simple. That has led to people taking advantage of the model to generate cash without having any intention of developing a quality journal. It has also enabled well-meaning people who don’t really have a good grasp of what publishing a quality journal requires to start up journals that end up being “questionable” despite the good intentions of the people setting them up.

Comment on Noto-are version of open access- read the fine print and think spam by Kevin MacFarlane

Kevin MacFarlane — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:13:26 +0000

Hi, I got an email from this funny little house at 10007 116TH AVE NE, KIRKLAND, WA, and I am too sceptical of any email that looks for my business – if you want to publish, you need to go out and look for a publisher, even for Open Science/Science 2.0 – they’re not going to come door-knocking. So I searched and found your article. Thanks for taking the time to go into detail with the fine print, being sceptical I couldn’t be bothered and let Google do the work for me. I hope most people do a background check of some sort before thinking of signing up – but a look at the house at the end of the Domain registration is enough to turn anyone off.

Comment on What’s new with the predator InTech? Not much…apparently by Chris Rust

Chris Rust — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:56:43 +0000

I found your post when searching for information to support a review I was asked to do of a chapter in an InTech book from 2008.
I was quite disturbed by the quality of the chapter, although it was outside my immediate field I could see that it was extremely complex and confused in its presentation and it failed to describe the most significant technical aspect of the experimental work that was done.
I was led to conclude that there was little or no editing or review and no evidence of a coherent editing strategy, this particular chapter was a simply a research report as might be found in a journal paper. I was particularly concerned that InTech appear to have published two large books with the same title in the same year, each with a large number of “chapters”
So thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Comment on The Good, Bad, and Ugly- Open access into the sunlight by Leah Wescott

Leah Wescott — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:34:12 +0000

This is one time when “ugly” is the nicest compliment we could imagine.

Comment on The predator InTechWeb: Give away what you would never sell by cjgberg

cjgberg — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:42:55 +0000

It's a free country...I mean a free world, and it is your funds paying the CPC (Chapter Processing Charge). I strongly recommend you stay away from anyone on this list.

Comment on The predator InTechWeb: Give away what you would never sell by Hisham Hamid Hawass

Hisham Hamid Hawass — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:38:46 +0000

I can’t really find a reason not to publish in In Tech.
I’ve been invited to write down a chapter in their forthcoming book ‘business management’. I had the opportunity to look at the proposals submitted to the editor in chief. they all fit well within the scope of the studies. Besides, the editor in chief has sufficient experience in this scope of interest.

Comment on More predatory evidence about InTech- the prey is your wallet, authors by Brian

Brian — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:59:18 +0000

Thanks, I will stay away from this.