Predatory Publishing Working to eliminate predatory journals and conferences Twittter: @fake_journals Web site: https://predatory-publishing.com/ Thank you for downloading this document. It contains the three papers referred to in the blog post: https://predatory-publishing.com/read-these-three-articles-to-understand-predatory-publishing/ Please see the post if you need reminding. The citation for the next article is: Beall, J. (2013) Predatory publishing is just one of the consequences of gold open access, Learned Publishing, 26(2): pp 79-84. DOI: 1087/20130203 Predatory publishing is just one of the consequences of gold open access 79 Predatory publishing is just one of the consequences of gold open access Jeffrey Beall Learned Publishing, 26: 79–84 doi:10.1087/20130203 POINT OF VIEW Predatory publishing is just Introduction I have been closely following and par- one of the consequences of ticipating in the open-access (OA) movement since 2008. In that year, when the gold OA model fi rst began to be implemented on a large scale, gold open access I noticed the appearance of several new publishers that lacked trans- Jeffrey BEALL parency and used deceptive websites University of Colorado Denver to attract manuscript submissions and the accompanying author fees. This article examines the ways the gold open-access model is negatively affecting scholarly Initially, I printed out copies of their communication. web pages and placed them in a blue folder. In 2009, I published a review of the publisher Bentham Open the communication of science. I increased dramatically worldwide, in the library review journal the argue that the gold OA model is a creating the need and the markets for Charleston Advisor. Writing a second failure, that the debate surround- new journals and publishers to make review in the same journal in 2010, I ing OA has become contentious it all available. coined the term ‘predatory publisher’ and divisive, and that the future of Reacting to the criticism and to and changed the focus of my informal scholarly publishing is in peril. Never the journal cancellations, the schol- blog, called Metadata, to predatory before has the scholarly publishing arly publishing industry took action. publishing. I published my fi rst list of industry attracted so much attention They granted libraries new econo- predatory publishers on my old blog from scholars, researchers, and aca- mies of scale, one in the form of in 2010, but it drew almost no atten- demics. The medium of scholarship journal bundling, which increased tion. In late 2011, gathering together has now become the intense focus of the number of titles that individual the expanding materials in my blue scholarship itself, and many have a academic libraries were able to afford folder, I published a second list of stake in its outcome. predatory publishers that garnered and make available to their users. much attention. Later in early 2012 The second economy of scale was to grant deep discounts to library con- I moved my blog to an improved A brief history of open access platform and changed its name to sortia. Repurposing existing library Scholarly Open Access. Throughout The story of OA publishing begins cooperative ventures involving tradi- 2012, I continued tracking, listing, with the advent of the Internet tional library functions such as cata- and writing about the new publishers and soon after with librarians alert- loging, libraries organized regional that I added to my list. The 2010 list ing the academic community to the and statewide consortia – groups included 18 publishers, the 2011 list ever-increasing subscription prices of libraries that function basically had 23, and the 2013 list had over of scholarly journals. At that time, as buyers’ cooperatives. Publishers 225. Also beginning in early 2012, I the term ‘serials crisis’ was coined. competed with each other for librar- started keeping a second list of inde- Libraries began to cancel journal sub- ies’ business, granting deep discounts pendent journals that do not publish scriptions, yet at the same time the that essentially resolved the serials under the aegis of any publisher, and desktop publishing revolution helped crisis by 2004. that list now contains over 150 titles. increase the number of journals being One other aspect of the serials In this paper, I relate the new and published by medium- and small- crisis was the impact of the higher important things that I have learned sized organizations. Also, the amount journal subscription prices on librar- about scholarly publishing, OA, and of scholarship being published ies in developing countries, but pub- LEARNED PUBLISHING VOL. 26 NO. 2 APRIL 2013 80 Jeffrey Beall lishers also solved this problem. The departments contributed to lowering that has created the whole problem Research4Life program grants free the overall cost of academic publish- of predatory publishers. or very low cost access to subscrip- ing by subscribing to scholarly publi- The weaknesses of the gold OA tion e-journals in developing coun- cations. Now these corporations are model are many. Some are now even tries. Many fail to acknowledge the benefi ting from OA by not paying sarcastically calling it ‘pay to say’. contributions of the Research4Life the subscription costs they used to The model will limit contributions to program in the developing world. In pay, costs that essentially subsidized those with access to funds to support some developing countries, this pro- the subscription costs paid by librar- article processing charges (APCs). gram brings about a greater access to ies to support scholarly publishing. While it is true that some publishers contemporary journal literature than OA decreases the pool of money offer waivers or discounts on the fees libraries in developed countries can that publishers (traditional or author- levied on authors, these are in reality provide. Many are ignorant of these pays) can dedicate to meeting the the exception, I think. programs and fatuously malign estab- costs of high-quality publishing. Gold OA threatens the existence lished publishers for their supposed of scholarly societies, chiefl y those indifference. in the arts and humanities. Largely Flipping the model from print to But despite the resolution of the funded by library subscriptions to online serials crisis, the seeds of revolution their journals, scholarly societies are had already been planted. The truth In the early 2000s, scholarly pub- facing a no-win situation with gold of the crisis’ resolution was incom- lishers began to fl ip their publishing OA. In many fi elds, authors have modious to those fervently advocat- models from print to online. Many, never paid APCs and are uncomfort- ing OA. Moreover, the strong leftist if not most, now publish exclusively able with the idea of paying them. and anti-corporatist propensity of online. This change involved a mas- Moreover, even with author charges, the academy led to an identifi cation sive investment on the part of pub- many societies would still not make of its arch-enemy: the large, for- lishers. One of the amazing benefi ts enough money to support their pub- profi t scholarly publishers. The OA of this change was the digitization of lishing programs and would lose the advocates even named their poster journal backfi les. Like never before, subsidies that these programs now child of corporate malevolence, pub- scholars could search entire runs of provide to societies’ overall operat- lisher Reed Elsevier, long respected journals including, in many cases, ing costs. Here, the traditional pub- as a high-quality scholarly publisher issues from as far back as the 19th lishing system operated as a kind whose portfolio includes many of century. Publishers also created and of commonwealth. Many academic world’s top academic journals. The implemented new value-added fea- libraries and other organisations paid zealots have symbolically burned tures to facilitate research such as reasonable subscription costs to soci- Elsevier in effi gy for so many years automatic reference linking. They ety publishers, and these contribu- now that the protests have become invested in digital preservation, safe- tions spread out the costs and sup- hackneyed. guarding their products against loss ported the important work of the Meanwhile, faculty salaries in c- and format change. Traditional toll- learned societies. Gold OA threatens reased dramatically during this same access publishers focused most of to destroy this successful system and period. Many of the same faculty their innovations on the consumers leaves arts and humanities societies members across North America who of their products, the readers. with few positive choices as to how were protesting higher journal sub- to operate their publishing programs. scription costs concurrently saw giant A second very negative impact The rise and fall of gold OA increases in their salaries. Increasing of the advent of gold OA publish- retirements meant more inter- At the same time, the gold OA model ing is the alarming increase in author university competition for faculty began to proliferate and, along with misconduct. Ironically, OA makes across the United States, a competi- this, the focus changed. For many author misconduct easier to fi nd and tion that many faculty were happy to journals, authors became publishers’ document. Misconduct that involves exploit. customers, leaving readers as second- piracy, such as plagiarism, can eas- Later many would realize that one ary players in the new OA equation. ily be confi rmed by searching for a of the chief benefi ciaries of the anti- The fatal fl aw of the gold OA model plagiarized passage on the Internet. corporatist OA movement would be is the built-in confl ict of interest: the But there are many additional forms corporations themselves. Countless more papers a journal accepts, the of author misconduct that seem to companies and private organiza- more money it makes.