Problematic Journals

Read this question in Researchgate about the "Journal of Physics & Optics Sciences"

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Journal_of_Physics_Optics_Sciences_a_predatory_journal

It also seems the publishing group company was disolved in 2021

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND COMMUNITY LTD overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

(prompted by this post on LF.)

Interesting review of some of the issues - with some useful experimental data, and thoughtful conclusions.

Quote

Some concluding remarks.

Saying that publishing in so-called predatory journals is a waste of time and of your

precious research data and work appears to be...

Not true. In a substantial number of occasions a paper published in such a journal (or predatory

publisher behind it) results in citations (see results of citation counts (round 50% of the papers

had at least one citation) and the examples of the most cited papers found in the re-evaluation

results of a number of journals). The analysis of citations counts of randomly chosen journals

and publishers gave an average between 1-5 citations per paper, looking at the most cited papers

of journals I checked in my little re-evaluation gives some impressive number of citations for

their most cited papers. So to say the least: “It is not always a waste and the scientific

community is judging a paper on its merits by reading it and use it if it is found to be of any use

and fulfils some academic purpose”.

Beall’s list is always right and should be treated as ‘a holy bible’ when it comes to

predatory or not.

Well it is clear that Beall’s list contains fake journals and publishers that act, to say the least,

misleading. However numerous (stand-alone) journals look to me genuine and might be not

always high in quality standards in terms of all sorts of journal/publishing regulations (keep in

mind that every ‘service’ DOI, CrossRef, DOAJ, etc. all cost money which might be an issue

for a starting journal and/or publishing house). The absence of ‘accepted’ indices is not equal

to predatory, it is not always easy to obtain an index [8].

Individual researchers should be blacklisted for having published in an alleged predatory

journal.

The consequences of blacklisting and better ways than blacklisting individual researchers has

been described already a long time before predatory publishing [9]. The lack of value of a

blacklist when it comes to predatory or not is discussed thoroughly elsewhere [10]. The only

thing I can add to this is that I tend to believe in the honesty of researchers and their genuine

wish to publish their work for others to use (and of course make visible what they have done or

are doing in terms of scientific work). I also believe that the scientific community should ‘judge’

and/or value the work by reading, using and ultimately citing it or not. Simply disqualify a

researcher solely based on the fact that the journal where his or her paper is published is

predatory according to Beall’s list is unjust and way too simplistic. Judging the work on its own

merits I would say.

Beall’s list should be susceptible to revisions after re-evaluation.

It seems that the objective of the Beall’s list is to make the list larger, however there should be

a (real) chance to remove items. The way Jeffrey Beall was the “judge jury and executioner” in

his ‘verdict’ on whether a journal or publisher is (potentially) predatory has been questioned on

several occasions, see for example [11]. My attempt has nothing to do with ‘downplaying’ or

‘denying’ the existence of predatory, fake or pseudo-scientific journals and/or publishers.

Thanks to the initiative of Jeffrey Beall we all are aware of this down-site of open access

publishing which business model implies the more manuscripts are accepted the more revenues.

As Phil Davis stated about the well-known Bohannon reports (where a bogus scientific paper

was send to journals in order to see whether their peer-review (if taken place) would identify

this): “Beall was good at spotting publishers with poor quality control (82% of publishers on

his list accepted the manuscript). That means that Beall is falsely accusing nearly one in five as

being a “potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open access publisher” on

appearances alone” [12]. In Table 1. I tried to summarize the results of the re-evaluation of

some journals and publishers and this might correspond quite well with the fact that at least

20% of the journals on Beall’s list might be falsely accused of being predatory.

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Ultimately, all papers and articles, wherever they are published, have to stand on their own merits. Caveat Lector - reader beware.

The number of retractions of papers from "reputable" journals - sometimes decades after they were first published - shows that using the status of a journal as a shorthand way to determine the veracity the data in a paper is just laziness. The same lazy approach also leads to the idea that all papers that appear in particular journals must be automatically worthless because of a "poor reputation", or because of who owns or runs them.

"Problematic journals" can be ones that make a pretence of carrying out peer review, and simply exist to rip-off authors with a "processing fee". And like the one at the start of this thread, they could also be "fly-by-night" operations - with no guarantee that the paper, once published, will be available online for an extended period. Some "journals" are little more than hobby websites - and simply reflect the proclivities of the owner. "JNOP" probably falls into that category - but note that it does not actually appear on Beall's List.

Quote from PhysicsForDummies

But since Researchgate shamelessly hosts bogus papers from the JONP proprietor and lists massive numbers of fake "full reads", they too should be added to this problematic list as well

Your hatred for a certain person seems to extend to RG - but the site is just a tool (a mix of SocMed site and Repository - which includes 'Grey Lit'). This is what RG says about the Read stats:

Quote

Reads is a simple metric designed to show you exactly how often research is being accessed on ResearchGate. Since it can take a long time before your research gets cited, reads are a great way to see early interest in your work — from both ResearchGate members and non-members.

They admit it is basically a click-count - nothing more - which can easily be swamped through links circulating on social media. It means nothing, compared to citations.

Note that the RG item in question, whilst it shows over 128,000 "reads" only has a single citation.

The study referenced here is relevant:

Post

RE: USEFUL PAPERS THREAD

https://journals.plos.org/plos…1371/journal.pone.0292201

Frogfall

Mar 21st 2024

For those of us based here in the UK, who can access "BBC Sounds" - there were a couple of excellent 5 minute radio interviews last week with Ivan Oransky from Retraction Watch. The first was about the record number of paper retractions, last year (over 10,000 worldwide). The second was about "Paper Mills", where authors can pay to have their names added to genuine papers, or where bogus papers are simply written to order.

Quote from Retraction Watch

“When I see fields that don’t have as many retractions, I’m reasonably sure that’s because nobody is looking.”

Two BBC appearances by our Ivan Oransky.

BBC Radio 4 "PM", 18 March - starts at 46 minutes.

BBC Radio 4 "PM", 20 March - starts at 40 minutes.

For those of you outside the UK, who are probably blocked (are you?) - I'll see if I can capture and extract the audio.

Quote from JedRothwell

It is available in the U.S.

Thanks JedRothwell - that's useful to know.

Consider it a gift from BBC license fee payers

A large click-count is hardly "an abuse of the system".

Meanwhile ResearchGate has been fighting for its very existence.

ResearchGate Wins (& Loses) Scientific Publishers' Copyright Lawsuit * TorrentFreak

Quote from Paradigmnoia

How about click-pumped Reads to embellish his scientific credentials in order to to embellish his scam?

And then applauding himself, performing as a cast of characters (including a ‘Prof’), further grooming his marks…

This isn't the thread to obsess about the guy in the bad wig. It just helps to give him the notoriety he desires.

Journal taking ‘corrective actions’ after learning author used ChatGPT to update references

An interdisciplinary journal says it will take “corrective actions” on a paper following a thorough investigation on a paper for which one author used ChatGPT…

retractionwatch.com

Quote

On April 1, Bret Collier, a wildlife ecologist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, wrote to Srinivasan and others, informing them the March 2024 study, titled “Breeding distrust: The biopolitics of chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer,” contained several non-existent citations, one to a paper referred to as being published in 2026.