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Dear Paul,
That a publisher, claiming to be a reputable publisher of respected
and respectable scientific journals, would perpetrate this--the
publication of fraudulent journals--should be made as widely known
throughout the scientific community as possible. I would very much
like to see whether that community spontaneously decides, with no
formal action, to boycott Elsevier publications, at least until the
publisher openly repudiates those fraudulent journals. Moreover it
raises the question of whether the scientific community should,
through its professional organizations, establish a publication
oversight board that would investigate such incidents and make them
known to the broader community. This is a topic that I would very
much like us to address in the Board on Research Data and
Information.
Best regards,
Steve
On May 19, 2009, at 12:43 AM, Uhlir, Paul wrote:
Sally, I don't wish to belabour the point, but I also
don't want it to be missed. I appear to have been too
oblique in my original comment, which may have obscured
its relevance to you as well as to others on this
listserv. What I meant to address was your assertion that
you think it is "a fallacy that publishers launch new
journals in order to make money". The link I provided was
to a report by Peter Suber that Elsevier in Australia
launched 6 fake biomedical journals that included "a
series of sponsored article publications". Elsevier
declined to name the sponsors, although when this
story initially broke about the first two journals, it
was reported that those were sponsored by Merck. It is
quite clear, however, that all 6 journals were launched
solely to make money, basically to provide "infomercials"
written by Elsevier's clients under the guise of
independent, peer-reviewed research results.
More important than addressing your assertion, however, was to
bring this scandal to the attention of the recipients of this
listserv, since these incidents do not appear to have been
widely reported. They strike me as a rather fundamental breach
of scientific integrity and publishing ethics in the sensitive
area of public health that should be of concern to
everyone--researchers, publishers, and the broader public.
Paul
____________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Sally
Morris
Sent: Sun 5/17/2009 4:48 AM
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES
Sorry Paul, I don?t see the relevance of this to my general
response to a wide-ranging and, IMHO, unfounded comment
Sally
Sally Morris
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Tel: +44(0)1903 871286
Fax: +44(0)8701 202806
Email: sally_at_morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
____________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]On
Behalf Of Uhlir, Paul
Sent: 15 May 2009 22:38
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES
Sally, you may wish to reconsider your assumptions and
assertions in light of the following:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/05/elsevier-confirms-6-fake-journals
-more.html
Paul
____________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Sally
Morris
Sent: Fri 5/15/2009 10:56 AM
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES
Tenopir and King found that the average number of articles per
journal was, in fact, increasing steadily. I think it?s a
fallacy that publishers launch new journals in order to make
money; it is, surely, more profitable to expand an existing
journal (assuming you can increase the price accordingly)? New
journals take years to make any money, even if they succeed ?
and not all do
Sally
Sally Morris
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Tel: +44(0)1903 871286
Fax: +44(0)8701 202806
Email: sally_at_morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
____________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]On
Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 15 May 2009 15:33
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Colin Smith at Open University
I've just realised I quoted the wrong day in the email I just
sent to
the forum. It should have been Mon 11 May, not Fri. If this
reaches you
in time, please correct it during moderation.
On Mon 11 May 2009 at 09:27 Sally Morris wrote:
While Andrew Adams' letter makes some valid points, I would
like to
point out that the number of articles per author
has not changed over
many years (Tenopir and King have excellent data on
this). Thus neither
'publish or perish' nor 'greedy publishers' have
contributed in any way
to the steady growth (not 'explosion') of research
articles - it simply
reflects growth in research funding, and thus
number of researchers."
Even if the number of articles per author has not changed
significantly,
surely the issue here is the number of journals in which those
articles
are published? Is there any data on this? If the steady growth
in
articles is being spread thinly across a larger number of
titles then
this could be interpreted as evidence for the needless launch
of new
journals in a saturated market.
Anecdotally, I seem to come across more and more journals
publishing two
issues in one, presumably because of a lack of copy-flow.
Indeed, I have
worked for at least one publisher where a decision was taken to
exploit
an (unconvincing) niche in the market by launching a new
journal,
instead of looking to enhance the editorial content of an
existing
title. That journal then struggled for copy, publishing very
thin or
joint issues, but generated more income than if the publisher
had
accommodated the extra papers by increasing the size or number
of issues
of an (appropriate) existing journal.
Colin Smith
Research Repository Manager
Open Research Online (ORO)
Open University Library
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
http://twitter.com/smithcolin
http://oro.open.ac.uk
Received on Wed May 20 2009 - 12:45:03 BST