[open-science] Fake Cancer study published in 157 Open Access Journals

[Samuel Leach]

Hi everyone,

In terms of metrics, it would be great if journals would publish:

- Impact factor (I do have reservations about using this metric in
isolation)
- Rejection rate.

and if we could develop some kind of

- Journal reputation score (depends on various factors including the
editors and referees' standing - welcome suggestions here).

That ought to separate out many of those predatory publishers bogus
journals who are forever spamming academics.

Sam Leach


On 4 October 2013 15:53, Paweł Szczęsny <ps at pawelszczesny.org> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Egon Willighagen <
> egon.willighagen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> But the paper *does* *not* show a cause-effect between OA and this
>> problem. They just did not do the correct experiment for that. A
>> reviewer should have caught that... but, oh wait, peer review is
>> broken as the paper found out...
>>
>>
> In principle I agree, however Klaus points out in quite an interesting
> direction. Gold OA (APC version) _enabled_ or _let flourish_ (choose your
> version) particular predatory business model. Before introduction of OA and
> article processing charges pushing weak paper through the journal willing
> to 'cooperate' wasn't that easy, as the transfer of benefits wasn't as
> automated as today (it was just harder to _pay_ to get your bogus paper
> "published"). Apparently, intrinsic problems of peer review (the same for
> OA and non-OA publishing) are much easier to be exploited in Gold OA (APC
> version).
>
> For example, if I were predatory publisher I would start to optimize ratio
> between image/impact/IF and rejection rate to maximize income (maybe you
> could trade a bit of IF but have much smaller rejection rate than PLoS
> One?). Such strategy seems to guarantee long-term survival on the market,
> as long as APC dominates Gold OA.
>
> Of course, the original piece doesn't reach that far. However, maybe, when
> speaking out on the issue, we should mention PeerJ, as an example of OA
> journal that removes a direct incentive for the publisher to publish more
> at the cost of quality? The fact that PLoS One rejected the bogus paper
> does not help much, as the predatory journals and P1 have in principle the
> same business models.
>
> Best wishes
> PS
>
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-- 
Samuel Leach
Mobile: +44(0)7447515032
slea.ch
@samuelleach
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