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Correspondence

Indian Pediatr 2016;53: 443

Publication: Predatory Journals and Beall

 

*Manas Pratim Roy and Ratan Gupta

Department of Pediatrics, VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, India.
Email: [email protected]
 

  


We read with interest the recent article in series on art and science of paper writing [1]. With a focus on guiding emerging authors from falling prey to predatory journals, the article indeed puts up a sincere effort. This is relevant as India has already been pointed out as a hub of such greedy journals [2]. However, we would like to add few more points.

If we consider recent debate over recommendations for academic promotion, it was noted that such journals are sending spam mails to authors with a mention of their eligibility for Medical Council of India criteria – an act equivalent to trapping ambitious authors – luring them to ‘fast-track publications’ at the cost of quality and originality. As noted by Beall, such journals are originating every week, particularly from developing world [2]. The root of many so-called global/ world/ international journals could be traced back to countries like India and Nigeria [3,4].

As we are being flooded with predatory journals today, the process of scientific communication is also undergoing some prominent changes. One of them is introduction of open access by the frontiers of health research. In addition, for ensuring survival in a competitive market, even legitimate publishers are offering short review process [2]. On the other hand, to keep reputations intact, many journals are seen to retract duplicate/plagiarised publications – a clear indication that better review process is not uniformly available across the globe.

Criteria were proposed earlier in literature to help authors get rid of the predatory journals [3]. In fact, if we consider publication fee/submission fee as a parameter for detecting predatory nature, numerous journals from India would lose their sheen. Many open access journals have no or substandard review process and article processing fee keeps more merit than scientific contribution, revealed a sting operation conducted by the journal Science [4]. The authors need to be cautious while dealing with e-mails requesting scientific contribution or joining editorial boards. All open access journals are not fishy, but some definitely are.

In fact, scientific committees all over the world has not appointed Beall for identifying the predatory journals. People have also reacted to his effort of ‘correcting’ the trend of open access [5]. However, even after all controversies, when we discuss a topic like ‘publishing in scientific journal’, Beall makes most of the appearances on a positive note, not his critics!

Funding: None; Competing interest: None stated.

References

1. Dewan P, Shah D. A writer’s dilemma: Where to publish and where not to? Indian Pediatr. 2016;53:141-5.

2. Beall J. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature. 2012;489:179.

3. Gasparyan AY, Yessirkepov M, Diyanova SN, Kitas GD. Publishing ethics and predatory practices: A dilemma for all stakeholders of science communication. J Korean Med Sci. 2015;30:1010-6.

4. Bohannon J. Who’s afraid of peer review? Science. 2013;342:60-5.

5. Bivens-Tatum W. Reactionary rhetoric against open access publishing. Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. 2014;12:441-6.

 

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