84-650: OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals . It started publishing its first journal in 2008. By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct. Its subsidiaries and brands include Allied Academies , Conference Series LLC LTD, EuroSciCon LTD, Hilaris Publishing, iMedPub LTD, International Online Medical Council (IOMC), Longdom Publishing SL, Meetings International, Prime Scholars , Pulsus Group , Research & Reviews, SciTechnol, Trade Science Inc, Life Science Events, Walsh Medical Media, and IT Medical Team. OMICS has come under attack by numerous academics and
168-415: A summary judgment (ECF No. 86) on 29 March 2019, with the court finding that OMICS made false claims about manuscripts being peer-reviewed, used the name of prominent researchers as editors of journals without their consent or knowledge, used misleading impact factors for journals which had not been calculated by Clarivate Analytics , made false claims about being indexed by PubMed, was not transparent about
252-466: A "sham" and their claiming of renowned academics in their editorial board and/or as speakers at its conferences without their consent to be intentionally deceptive. The FTC also noted a failure to disclose publishing fees prior to accepting pieces, citing of dubious impact factors and false assertions about their journals being indexed in PubMed, when they are not. In response to the lawsuit, OMICS rejected
336-622: A 2020 systematic review of 93 lists, only three were assessed as evidence-based. Multiple science funders have taken special measures against predatory publishing, especially in terms of national journal rankings . On 18 September 2018, Zbigniew Błocki, the director of the National Science Centre , the largest agency that funds fundamental research in Poland, stated that if articles financed by NCN funds were published in journals not satisfying standards for peer review, then
420-570: A PhD student. It started its first open-access journal, the Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics , in 2008. In 2012, OMICS Group had more than 200 journal titles, about 60% of which had no content. By 2015, it claimed over 700 titles, but about half of them were defunct. Several OMICS journals have names similar to existing publications. For instance, BioMed Central established the Journal of Biomedical Science in 1994, while OMICS established
504-406: A U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a "publicity stunt" that was meant to "intimidate". Section 66A has been criticised in an India Today editorial for its potential for misuse in "stifling political dissent, crushing speech and ... enabling bullying". Beall could have been sued for defamation , and would not have been able to fall back on truth as a final defense; under section 66A,
588-703: A U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a "publicity stunt" that were meant to "intimidate". An editorial in the New Delhi -based India Today cited the incident as evidence that Section 66A should be discarded to eliminate its use in "stifling political dissent, crushing speech and ... enabling bullying". In 2015, Section 66A was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in an unrelated case . In late September 2016, OMICS acquired two Canadian publishers— Andrew John Publishing and Pulsus Group —and sixteen journals published by them. The acquisition led to
672-662: A binary phenomenon. In the same issue of a journal it is possible to find articles which meet the highest criteria for scientific integrity, and articles which have one or more unethical issues. In March 2008, Gunther Eysenbach , publisher of an early open-access journal, drew attention to what he called " black sheep among open-access publishers and journals" and highlighted in his blog publishers and journals which resorted to excessive spam to attract authors and editors, criticizing in particular Bentham Science Publishers , Dove Medical Press , and Libertas Academica . In July 2008, Richard Poynder's interview series brought attention to
756-716: A blacklist of predatory journals (not publishers) in June, and said that access would be by subscription only. The company had started work on its blacklist criteria in early 2016. In July 2017, both a black list and a white list were offered for subscription on their website. In December 2023, a portal titled "Scholarly Criticism" was launched by a few Malaysian and US based research scholars in response to false and erroneous research published by so-called top-tier business journals. The presented criticism significantly provides evidence of little, no, or nescient peer review conducted by journals' editors and publishers. The portal also provides
840-412: A chosen policy coming from the top management" of OMICS. Predatory publisher Predatory publishing , also write-only publishing or deceptive publishing , is an exploitative academic publishing business model, where the journal or publisher prioritizes self-interest at the expense of scholarship. It is characterized by misleading information, deviates from the standard peer-review process,
924-496: A decline in publishing standards for these journals, caused concern that the names of the publishers were being hijacked to lend credence to bogus science, and led to six of the sixteen journals stating their intention to terminate their publishing contracts with OMICS. In 2023, Mike Downes stated that to the list of fraudulent practices undertaken by predatory publishers "must be added the invention or compilation of articles ostensibly written by academic scholars but in fact crafted by
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#17327982486261008-742: A list of questionable journals analyzed by the editors of the portal. The founders of the portal get inspiration from the commentary authored by Ch. Mahmood Anwar titled "Emergence of false realities about the concept of “Silaturrahim”: an academic social construction perspective". The commentary was published in Tourism Critiques back in 2022. In this commentary, the author floated very important concepts of false information reporting, academic social artifacts, academic social construction, false citation chains, and other related concepts. Since Beall's list closed, other list groups have started. These include Kscien's list, which used Beall's list as
1092-526: A meeting is the 2016 International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics, organised by ConferenceSeries, and to which Christoph Bartneck, an associate professor in Information Technology at New Zealand's University of Canterbury , was invited. With little knowledge of nuclear physics, Bartneck used iOS 's autocomplete function to write the paper, choosing randomly from its suggestions after starting each sentence, and submitted it under
1176-400: A paper plagiarized from Aristotle and "garbled to remove any clear meaning" to an ethics journal, and later accepted the same paper to a conference on geriatrics and nursing. It has been also found that many academic or government scientists are advertised as speakers or organizers for OMICS conferences, without their agreement. In April 2013, OMICS received a cease-and-desist letter from
1260-417: A predatory conference, or did not know if they had. The majority of those who did so unknowingly cited a lack of awareness of predatory practices; whereas the majority of those who did so knowingly cited the need to advance their careers." According to one study, 60% of articles published in predatory journals receive no citations over the five-year period following publication. Actors seeking to maintain
1344-454: A publicly disclosed policy on predatory journals. A study in 2015 found that predatory journals rapidly increased their publication volumes from 53,000 in 2010 to an estimated 420,000 articles in 2014, published by around 8,000 active journals. Early on, publishers with more than 100 journals dominated the market, but since 2012 publishers in the 10–99 journal size category have captured the largest market share. As of 2022, almost one third of
1428-598: A publisher on the list and referenced a resurrected version of Beall's list. This version includes Beall's original list and updates by an anonymous purported "postdoctoral researcher in one of the [E]uropean universities [who has] a hands-on experience with predatory journals." At the May 2017 meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing , Cabell's International, a company that offers scholarly publishing analytics and other scholarly services, announced that it intended to launch
1512-552: A set of criteria that publishers and journals must comply with to win a place on a 'white list' indicating that they are trustworthy. Beall has been threatened with a lawsuit by a Canadian publisher which appears on the list. He reports that he has been the subject of online harassment for his work on the subject. His list has been criticized for relying heavily on analysis of publishers' web sites, not engaging directly with publishers, and including newly founded but legitimate journals. Beall has responded to these complaints by posting
1596-441: A starting point, updating it to add and remove publishers. In 2020 Ministry of Science and Technology of China ordered Chinese Center of Scientometrics to launch a blacklist called Chinese Early Warning Journal List (EWJL). EWJL classifies journals into three grades: low, medium or high risk, rather than two (predatory or not) like most other lists. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing criticism of this list as well. According to
1680-604: A tendency of pharmaceutical companies to publish in these journals, which might have stemmed from a self-interest in skipping rigorous review procedures. They were also the major sponsors of OMICS conferences. In 2013, Jeffrey Beall reported that OMICS has added conducting " predatory meetings " to its publications activity including under the ConferenceSeries banner. Beall criticised the financial arrangements for OMICS conferences and urged all scholars to refrain from any dealing with these conferences. An example of such
1764-411: A third of those journals engaging in fraudulent editorial practices. The root cause of exploitative practices is the author-facing article-processing charge (APC) business model, in which authors are charged to publish rather than to read. Such a model provides incentives for publishers to focus on the quantity of articles published, rather than their quality. APCs have gained increasing popularity in
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#17327982486261848-424: Is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members and managing them. The term is often used at newspapers , magazines , yearbooks , and television news programs. The editor-in-chief is commonly the link between the publisher or proprietor and
1932-423: Is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS's editorial practices". OMICS' law firm said it was pursuing damages under India's Information Technology Act, 2000 , referring to section 66A, which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish "any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or to publish false information. It stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although
2016-439: Is an outlier in two consecutive years according to any of three criteria comparing it with peer journals in its subject field Web of Science implemented somewhat similar criteria, although they do not specify any quantitative metrics. Also, Web of Science (unlike Scopus) checks for excessive citations of the works authored by the journal board members. As of summer 2024 SciFinder (and Chemical Abstract Service ) do not have
2100-673: Is good at spotting publishers with poor quality control." However, the managing director of DOAJ, Lars Bjørnshauge, estimates that questionable publishing probably accounts for fewer than 1% of all author-pays, open-access papers, a proportion far lower than Beall's estimate of 5–10%. Instead of relying on blacklists, Bjørnshauge argues that open-access associations such as the DOAJ and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association should adopt more responsibility for policing publishers: they should lay out
2184-637: Is highly non-transparent, and often utilizes aggressive solicitation practices. The phenomenon of "open-access predatory publishers" was first noticed by Jeffrey Beall around 2012, when he described "publishers that are ready to publish any article for payment". However, criticisms about the label "predatory" have been raised. A lengthy review of the controversy started by Beall appears in The Journal of Academic Librarianship . Predatory publishers are so regarded because scholars are tricked into publishing with them, although some authors may be aware that
2268-936: Is not possible for the OMICS Group to proceed against Beall under section 66A, but it could mount a defamation case. Finally, in August 2016, OMICS was sued for "deceptive business practices related to journal publishing and scientific conferences" by the Federal Trade Commission (a US government agency), who won an initial court ruling in November 2017. Beall's list was used as an authoritative source by South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training in maintaining its list of accredited journals: articles published in those journals will determine funding levels for their authors; however, journals identified as predatory will be removed from this list. ProQuest
2352-683: Is reviewing all journals on Beall's list, and has started removing them from the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences . In January 2017, Beall shut down his blog and removed all its content, citing pressure from his employer. Beall's supervisor wrote a response stating that he did not pressure Beall to discontinue his work, or threaten his employment; and had tried hard to support Beall's academic freedom. In 2017, Ramzi Hakami reported on his own successful attempt to get an intentionally poor paper accepted by
2436-607: The Improbable Research blog had found that Scientific Research Publishing 's journals duplicated papers already published elsewhere; the case was subsequently reported in Nature . In 2010, Cornell University graduate student Phil Davis (editor of the Scholarly Kitchen blog) submitted a manuscript consisting of computer-generated nonsense (using SCIgen ), which was accepted for a fee (but withdrawn by
2520-725: The Committee on Publication Ethics , the DOAJ, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association , and the World Association of Medical Editors. Various journal review websites (crowd-sourced or expert-run) have been started, some focusing on the quality of the peer review process and extending to non-OA publications. A group of libraries and publishers launched an awareness campaign. Editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief ( EIC ), also known as lead editor or chief editor ,
2604-765: The Directory of Open Access Journals and complying with a standardised set of conditions. The majority of predatory OA publishers appear to be based in Asia and Africa, but in one study over half of authors publishing in them were found to be from "higher-income or upper-middle-income countries". It has been argued that authors who publish in predatory journals may do so unwittingly without actual unethical perspective, due to concerns that North American and European journals might be prejudiced against scholars from non-Western countries, high publication pressure or lack of research proficiency. Hence predatory publishing also questions
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2688-408: The Journal of Biomedical Science s in 2012. OMICS employed around 2,000 people. In 2016, the company had revenue of $ 11.6 million and generated a profit of about $ 1.2 million. The Government of India has waived taxes whilst granting subsidized land for the construction of new headquarters. OMICS operates on a gold open access model , wherein the author pays for publication and the publisher makes
2772-498: The OMICS Group, iMedPub , Conference Series , and the individual Srinubabu Gedela, an Indian national who is president of the companies. In the lawsuit, the defendants are accused of "deceiving academics and researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars". The FTC was also responding to pressure to take action against predatory publishers. Attorneys for
2856-579: The United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) after a complaint filed by Ken Witwer, who said he had been fooled by OMICS's deceptive marketing. The letter alleged that OMICS used images and names of employees that either no longer worked at NIH or did not provide permission, and asked OMICS not to use the name of its agencies institutes or employees for anything other than "true factual statements". OMICS responded by modifying its website and providing emails and letters from
2940-484: The "control" journals which "must meet certain standards of quality, including ethical publishing practices." Among journals sampled from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), 8 of 120 accepted Szust. The DOAJ has since removed some of the affected journals in a 2016 purge. None of the 120 sampled journals listed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) offered Szust the position. The results of
3024-483: The $ 50.1 million award. In 2013, OMICS Publishing Group sent a letter to then University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall stating that they intended to sue him and were seeking $ 1 billion in damages. In their six-page letter, OMICS stated that Beall's blog is "ridiculous, baseless, impertinent", and "smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance". Beall said that he found the letter "to be poorly written and personally threatening," and that he thought: "the letter
3108-466: The 100 largest publishers (by journal count) could be deemed predatory. The regional distribution of both the publisher's country and authorship is highly skewed, with three-quarters of the authors from Asia or Africa. Authors paid an average fee of US $ 178 each for articles to be published rapidly without review, typically within two to three months of submission. As reported in 2019, some 5% of Italian researchers have published in predatory journals, with
3192-406: The 516-word abstract contained the words "good" and "great" a combined total of 28 times. Despite being obvious nonsense, the work was accepted within three hours of submission and a conference registration fee of $ 1,099 requested. Bartneck commented that he was "reasonably certain that this is a money-making conference with little to no commitment to science," a comment he based on the poor quality of
3276-594: The English language, the composition of the editorial board or the rigour of the peer review process itself tend to favour familiar content from the "centre" rather than the "periphery". It is thus important to distinguish between exploitative publishers and journals – whether OA or not – and legitimate OA initiatives with varying standards in digital publishing, but which may improve and disseminate epistemic contents. Lists of journals or publishers deemed either acceptable or unacceptable have been published. Beall's List
3360-461: The FTC suit by maintaining that their practices were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit. It has also threatened a prominent critic, Jeffrey Beall , with a $ 1 billion lawsuit for defamation. OMICS Publishing Group was founded in 2007 by Gedela Srinubabu , who remains the company's director. He founded OMICS because of his difficulty in accessing high-cost journal contents as
3444-829: The FTC won the suit in a summary judgement and was awarded $ 50,130,811 in damages and a broad injunction against OMICS practices. It is unlikely that the FTC will ever collect the award, since the rulings of US courts are not enforceable in India, and since OMICS does not have property in the US. Recognizing common characteristics of predatory publishers can help to avoid them. Complaints that are associated with predatory open-access publishing include: Predatory publishers have also been compared to vanity presses . In 2015, Jeffrey Beall used 26 criteria related to poor journal standards and practices, 9 related to journal editors and staff members, 7 related to ethics and integrity, 6 related to
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3528-614: The Foundations to issue their own lists of acceptable journals; (2) making sure that the results of their funded works are readily discovered by other people, as Web of Science and Scopus are subscribed to by most reputable institutions. However, in parallel with the withdrawal of Clarivate from Russia in 2022 and the pause in Elsevier services from 2022 onwards, the Web of Science and Scopus listings are no longer considered as essential by
3612-518: The Middle East." The demonstration of unethical practices in the OA publishing industry has also attracted considerable media attention. In 2013, John Bohannon , a staff writer for the journal Science and for popular science publications, tested the open-access system by submitting to a number of such journals a deeply flawed paper on the purported effect of a lichen constituent, and published
3696-707: The NIH employees ostensibly agreeing to serve as editors of OMICS journals. Those employees later said that while they did agree to serve as editors, they did not provide permission for their names to be used in marketing materials; furthermore, they had not actually handled any manuscripts. In August 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a suit against OMICS, two of its affiliated companies and Gedela, charging them with deceptive publishing practices and seeking an unspecified monetary reimbursement for academics duped by them. In its first-ever suit against an academic publisher, they alleged OMICS' peer-review processes to be
3780-421: The OMICS Group published a response on their website, claiming "your FTC allegations are baseless. Further we understand that FTC working towards favoring some subscription based journals publishers who are earring [ sic ] Billions of dollars rom [ sic ] scientists literature", suggesting that corporations in the scientific publishing business were behind the allegations. In March 2019,
3864-632: The Russian agencies. More transparent peer review, such as open peer review and post-publication peer review , has been advocated to combat predatory journals. Others have argued instead that the discussion on predatory journals should not be turned "into a debate over the shortcomings of peer review—it is nothing of the sort. It is about fraud, deception, and irresponsibility..." In an effort to "set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones", principles of transparency and best practice have been identified and issued collectively by
3948-559: The United States government over the validity of the peer review by OMICS journals, the appropriateness of its fees and marketing, and the apparent advertising of the names of scientists as journal editors or conference speakers without their knowledge or permission. The U.S. National Institutes of Health sent a cease-and-desist letter to OMICS in 2013, demanding it to discontinue with false claims of affiliation with U.S. government entities or employees. In August 2016, OMICS became
4032-613: The articles available for free. As well as publication fees, OMICS charges a withdrawal fee for manuscripts that are withdrawn five or more days after submission. Such withdrawal fees are not levied by non-predatory publishers, and have been criticized as unethical and as discouraging researchers from making post-submission corrections to their work. In addition to publishing journals, OMICS also organizes conferences. In 2017, about 3,000 such conferences were organized. The conference arm makes up about 60% of OMICS' revenue. In 2012 OMICS launched an additional group of 53 additional journals under
4116-404: The author). Predatory publishers have been reported to hold submissions hostage, refusing to allow them to be withdrawn and thereby preventing submission in another journal. Predatory publishing does not refer to a homogeneous category of practices. The name itself was coined by American librarian Jeffrey Beall who created a list of "deceptive and fraudulent" Open Access (OA) publishers, which
4200-438: The authors' personal judgement, rather than objective evidence. Lists of acceptable sources, on the other hand, have been criticized as not being relevant to how academics evaluate journals. Directory of Open Access Journals is an example of a free whitelist. Other lists of pre-approved journals are available from large research funders. University of Colorado Denver librarian and researcher Jeffrey Beall , who coined
4284-615: The brand name 'SciTechnol', however as of 2021 the SciTechnol website does not disclose this relationship. OMICS is widely regarded as a predatory publisher . It has been subject to widespread criticism, notably by Jeffrey Beall , who included OMICS in his list of "potential, possible, or probable predatory" publishers. Among the criticism leveled at OMICS are that its journals are not actually peer-reviewed as advertised, often contain mistakes, and that its fees are excessive. OMICS says that its activities are legitimate and ethical, and that
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#17327982486264368-585: The criteria he uses to generate the list, as well as instituting an anonymous three-person review body to which publishers can appeal to be removed from the list. For example, a 2010 re-evaluation resulted in some journals being removed from Beall's list. In 2013, the OMICS Publishing Group threatened to sue Beall for $ 1 billion for his "ridiculous, baseless, [and] impertinent" inclusion of them on his list, which "smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance". An unedited sentence from
4452-406: The criteria, "but the more points on the list that apply to the journal at hand, the more sceptical you should be." The full list is quoted below: Scholar Aamir Raoof Memon proposed the following criteria of predatory publishing: Many scientific abstract and citation databases implemented policies to identify and combat predatory journals. For example, Scopus automatically flags a journal that
4536-438: The editorial staff. The term is also applied to academic journals , where the editor-in-chief gives the ultimate decision whether a submitted manuscript will be published. This decision is made by the editor-in-chief after seeking input from reviewers selected on the basis of relevant expertise. For larger journals, the decision is often upon the recommendation of one of several associate editors who each have responsibility for
4620-399: The enormity of OMICS's editorial practices". OMICS' lawyers stated that damages were being pursued under section 66A of India's Information Technology Act, 2000 , which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish "any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or to publish false information. The letter stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although
4704-542: The experiment were published in Nature in March 2017, and widely presented in the press. SCIgen , a computer program that randomly generates academic computer science papers using context-free grammar , has generated papers that have been accepted by a number of predatory journals as well as predatory conferences . On 25 August 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against
4788-486: The field of library and information science , even top tier non-OA journals could be qualified as predatory. Similarly, another study reported on the difficulties of demarcating predatory and non-predatory journals in biomedicine . One librarian wrote that Beall's list "attempts a binary division of this complex gold rush: the good and the bad. Yet many of the criteria used are either impossible to quantify..., or can be found to apply as often to established OA journals as to
4872-435: The first academic publisher to be sued by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for deceptive practices; nearly three years later, the FTC was awarded a summary judgement of over US$ 50 million. OMICS has responded to criticisms by avowing a commitment to open access publishing, claiming that detractors are traditional subscription-based publishers who feel threatened by their open-access publishing model. It responded to
4956-408: The geopolitical and commercial context of scholarly knowledge production. Nigerian researchers, for example, publish in predatory journals due to the pressure to publish internationally while having little to no access to Western international journals, or due to the often higher APCs practiced by mainstream OA journals. More generally, the criteria adopted by high JIF journals, including the quality of
5040-641: The grant numbers would have to be removed from the publications and funds would have to be returned to the NCN. Both the Russian Science Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research require their grant recipients to publish only in the journals included into either Web of Science or Scopus databases. This policy aims at (1) preventing the researchers from falling into the traps of predatory publishers, without having
5124-403: The journal is poor quality or even fraudulent but publish in them anyway. New scholars from developing countries are said to be especially at risk of being misled by predatory publishers. A 2022 report found that "nearly a quarter of the respondents from 112 countries, and across all disciplines and career stages, indicated that they had either published in a predatory journal, participated in
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#17327982486265208-575: The last two decades as a business model for OA, due to the guaranteed revenue streams they offer, as well as a lack of competitive pricing within the OA market, which allows vendors full control over how much they choose to charge. Ultimately, quality control relies on good editorial policies and their enforcement, and the conflict between rigorous scholarship and profit can be successfully managed by selecting which articles are published purely based on (peer-reviewed) methodological quality. Most OA publishers ensure their quality by registering their titles in
5292-460: The letter read: "Let us at the outset warn you that this is a very perilous journey for you and you will be completely exposing yourself to serious legal implications including criminal cases lunched [ sic ] against you in INDIA and USA." Beall responded that the letter was "poorly written and personally threatening" and expressed his opinion that the letter "is an attempt to detract from
5376-446: The name Iris Pear (a reference to Siri and Apple ). A sample sentence from the abstract for the resulting manuscript was: "The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids," and
5460-514: The new entrants in this area... Some of the criteria seem to make First World assumptions that aren't valid worldwide." Beall differed with these opinions and wrote a letter of rebuttal in mid-2015. Following the Who's Afraid of Peer Review? investigation, the DOAJ has tightened up its inclusion criteria, with the purpose of serving as a whitelist , very much like Beall's has been a blacklist . The investigation found that "the results show that Beall
5544-552: The objection that "(w)hether it's fair to classify all these journals and publishers as 'predatory' is an open question—several shades of gray may be distinguishable." Beall's analyses have been called sweeping generalizations with no supporting evidence, and he has also been criticized for being biased against open-access journals from less economically developed countries. A 2018 study has shown that Beall's criteria of "predatory" publishing were in no way limited to OA publishers and that, applying them to both OA and non-OA journals in
5628-746: The other hand, they also list journals with subpar standards of peer review and linguistic correction. Studies using Beall's list, or his definitions, report an exponential growth in predatory journals since 2010. A 2020 study has found hundreds of scientists say they have reviewed papers for journals termed 'predatory' — although they might not know it. An analysis of the Publons has found that it hosts at least 6,000 records of reviews for more than 1,000 predatory journals. "The researchers who review most for these titles tend to be young, inexperienced and affiliated with institutions in low-income nations in Africa and
5712-412: The practices of new publishers who were "better able to exploit the opportunities of the new environment." Doubts about honesty and scams in a subset of open-access journals continued to be raised in 2009. Concerns for spamming practices from these journals prompted leading open-access publishers to create the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association in 2008. In another early precedent, in 2009
5796-489: The publication fees charged per manuscript until after it had accepted an article for publication, and often did not allow researchers to withdraw their articles after submission. OMICS was ordered to pay a fine of $ 50,130,810 as well as change some of its publishing methods. OMICS plans to challenge the ruling. On September 11, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the grant of summary judgment and
5880-425: The publisher's business practices, and 6 'other' general criteria related to publishers. He also listed 26 additional practices, which were 'reflective of poor journal standards' which were not necessarily indicative of predatory behaviour. In 2016, researchers Stefan Eriksson and Gert Helgesson identified 25 signs of predatory publishing. They warn that a journal will not necessarily be predatory if they meet one of
5964-452: The publishing house in question", noting that "the majority are created under a fake name by compiling a set of plagiarized passages extracted from the specialized literature or cannibalized from within the journal's own archive". Downes's research showed that all of OMICS's subsidiaries and imprints have created and published such articles, arguing that this was evidence that "the directive to carry out this fraudulent scheme appears to have been
6048-593: The quality of its editorial control does need improvement. Other criticisms of OMICS include the publication of pseudoscientific articles, deceptive marketing practices, targeting of young investigators or those in lower-income regions, and holding papers hostage by disallowing their withdrawal (preventing them from being published by other journals). It has also been suggested that OMICS provides fake lists of scientists as journal editors to create an impression of scientific legitimacy, even though they are not involved in any review or editing process. One such editor-in-chief
6132-532: The results in a paper called, " Who's Afraid of Peer Review? ". About 60% of those journals, including journals of Elsevier , SAGE , Wolters Kluwer (through its subsidiary Medknow ), and several universities, accepted the faked medical paper. PLOS ONE and Hindawi rejected it. In 2015, four researchers created a fictitious sub-par scientist named Anna O. Szust ( oszust is Polish for "fraudster"), and applied on her behalf for an editor position to 360 scholarly journals. Szust's qualifications were dismal for
6216-691: The review process and the high cost of attendance. Gedela said that Bartneck's paper "slipped through" for being submitted "so close to the deadline". In another example, Tom Spears of the Ottawa Citizen repeatedly submitted to OMICS conferences several sting abstracts that included "Evolution of flight characteristics in avian-porcine physiology" and "Strategies for remediation of benthic and pelagic species dependent on coral reefs: Cases of T. migratorius and G. californianus" which respectively claimed to explain how pigs fly and claimed roadrunner birds lived underwater. In yet another case, OMICS accepted
6300-508: The role of an editor; she had never published a single article and had no editorial experience. The books and book chapters listed on her CV were made-up, as were the publishing houses that published the books. One-third of the journals to which Szust applied were sampled from Beall's List of predatory journals. Forty of these predatory journals accepted Szust as editor without any background vetting and often within days or even hours. By comparison, she received minimal to no positive response from
6384-400: The scholarly ecosystem have sought to minimize the influence of predatory publishing through the use of blacklists such as Beall's List and Cabell's blacklist , as well as through whitelists such as the Directory of Open Access Journals . Nevertheless, identifying (and even providing a quantitative definition) of predatory journals remains difficult, because it is a spectrum rather than
6468-491: The term "predatory publishing", first published his list of predatory publishers in 2010. Beall's list of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers attempted to identify scholarly open-access publishers with questionable practices. In 2013, Nature reported that Beall's list and web site were "widely read by librarians, researchers, and open-access advocates, many of whom applaud his efforts to reveal shady publishing practices." Others have raised
6552-401: The truth of any information is irrelevant if it is grossly offensive. In an unrelated case in 2015, Section 66A was struck down by the Supreme Court of India , which found that it had no proximate connection to public order, "arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech", and that the description of offences is "open-ended, undefined and vague." As such, it
6636-487: The various allegations, maintaining that their processes were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit. The United States District Court for the District of Nevada handed down a preliminary injunction in November 2017, preventing OMICS from "making misrepresentations" about their journals and conferences, as well as requiring that OMICS clearly disclose all article processing charges. The FTC won
6720-421: Was accepted; this fee was not mentioned in the email message OMICS sent her to solicit a submission. In 2012, while one OMICS journal rejected a paper after the reviewer noticed it was plagiarized from one of his own co-authored papers, another OMICS journal published the same paper later that year. When the reviewer again pointed this out, the paper was removed from OMICS' website in 2014, but no official retraction
6804-401: Was an example of a free blacklist, and Cabells' Predatory Reports is an example of a paid blacklist database. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommends against blindly trusting any list of fake or predatory journals, especially if they do not publish the criteria by which journals are evaluated. Some lists of purported predatory publishers have been criticized for being based on
6888-535: Was contacted by Science , and he stated that he had never handled any papers; in an interview with The Hindu , another said he had not been informed of his purported editorship. Other academics have said that OMICS published articles unaltered in spite of their request for revisions. The company has also been slow to remove the names of editorial board members who requested to terminate their relationship with OMICS activities, in some cases taking almost two years. One author received an invoice for $ 2,700 after her paper
6972-487: Was posted. In 2013, an OMICS journal accepted a bogus and obviously flawed publication submitted as part of a sting operation by Science . Critics assert that the main purpose of the publisher is commercial rather than academic. In September 2014, PubMed Central blacklisted OMICS journals, claiming serious concerns over OMICS' publishing practices. In 2017, Scopus delisted several OMICS journals for "publication concerns". A Bloomberg News investigation in 2017 noted
7056-498: Was used as reference until withdrawn in 2017. The term has been reused since for a new for-profit database by Cabell's International . On the one hand, Beall's list as well as Cabell's International database do include truly fraudulent and deceptive OA publishers that pretend to provide services (in particular quality peer review) which they do not implement, show fictive editorial boards and/or ISSN numbers, use dubious marketing and spamming techniques, or even hijacking known titles. On
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