You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

16 views
Skip to first unread message

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 5, 2017, 3:00:55 PM12/5/17
to The Open Scholarship Initiative, rsc...@googlegroups.com

Alice Meadows has written an excellent piece in today’s Scholarly Kitchen (http://bit.ly/2ntRfTL) highlighting the recent research work of David Moher, Larissa Shamseer, and Kelly Cobey on “predatory” publishing. Among the researcher’s recommendations are that:

 

  1. “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”
  2. “…there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem.”*

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

*Maybe OSI can help with this.

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

osi-logo-2016-25-mail

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem

 

From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
To: gham...@nationalscience.org
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen

 

The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey
 and Larissa Shamseer

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

If you would prefer not to receive daily alerts from The Scholarly Kitchen, go here.

 

Informz

image001.jpg

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 5, 2017, 3:14:00 PM12/5/17
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative, rsc...@googlegroups.com

I’ve already asked Alice to put me in touch with the authors of that piece, because I want to volunteer to help them with the consensus-definition project. If the group would like me to act as a go-between with them for OSI, I’d be happy to do that. Otherwise, I’ll just reach out to them as an interested individual.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

From: <rsc...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 at 1:05 PM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>, "rsc...@googlegroups.com" <rsc...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

Alice Meadows has written an excellent piece in today’s Scholarly Kitchen (http://bit.ly/2ntRfTL) highlighting the recent research work of David Moher, Larissa Shamseer, and Kelly Cobey on “predatory” publishing. Among the researcher’s recommendations are that:

 

1.       “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”

2.       “…there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem.”*

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

*Maybe OSI can help with this.

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

si-logo-2016-25-mail

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem

 

From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
To: gham...@nationalscience.org
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen

 

mage removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

mage removed by sender.

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen

mage removed by sender. Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An In

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

mage removed by sender.

If you would prefer not to receive daily alerts from The Scholarly Kitchen, go here.

 

mage removed by sender. Informz

mage removed by sender.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Research & Scholarly Communications Network" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rscomm+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rsc...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rscomm/003e01d36e03%24bffa8560%243fef9020%24%40nationalscience.org.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 5, 2017, 3:38:50 PM12/5/17
to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

The go-between approach would be great Rick if you’re willing. Since the researchers are hoping to pull together a diverse group of stakeholders---and since we already have that here—this might be a natural fit. At the very least, you can pester this group for input and/or bounce ideas off everyone. It also seems that this group has already plowed a lot of ground---you might be able to pull together a good first draft based on what folks here have already said.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.

image001.jpg

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 5, 2017, 3:43:43 PM12/5/17
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

OK, when I talk to the researchers I’ll mention that I’m reaching out on behalf of OSI, and we’ll see what they say. I would imagine that they’ll take any help they can get, since they made it clear in the interview that they’re struggling to get resources for this project.

 

Stay tuned, y’all...

 

Rick

i-logo-2016-25-mail

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem

 

From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
To: gham...@nationalscience.org
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen

 

age removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

age removed by sender.

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen

age removed by sender. Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An In

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

age removed by sender.

If you would prefer not to receive daily alerts from The Scholarly Kitchen, go here.

 

age removed by sender. Informz

age removed by sender.

David Wojick

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 8:42:03 AM12/7/17
to osi20...@googlegroups.com
We seem to have some more new jargon -- "low resourcing"  -- which causes a journal to be illegitimate. Perhaps they are referring to the very low cost APCs charged by most new wave journals. These certainly do preclude meeting some of the rich journal best practice standards, which can be expensive. Or maybe they mean something else. Is the term defined in the article?

It also seems confusing to call a journal that publishes legitimate research "illegitimate." Perhaps "substandard" is a better term, given that it is defined as failing to meet certain presumed standards. The question then becomes just what these standards are?

David

On Dec 5, 2017, at 3:00 PM, "Glenn Hampson" <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Alice Meadows has written an excellent piece in today’s Scholarly Kitchen (http://bit.ly/2ntRfTL) highlighting the recent research work of David Moher, Larissa Shamseer, and Kelly Cobey on “predatory” publishing. Among the researcher’s recommendations are that:

 

  1. “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”
  2. “…there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem.”*

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

*Maybe OSI can help with this.

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

<image001.jpg>

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem

 

From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
To: gham...@nationalscience.org
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen

 

The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey

 and Larissa Shamseer

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

If you would prefer not to receive daily alerts from The Scholarly Kitchen, go here.

 

Informz

--

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:01:00 AM12/7/17
to David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com

I agree David----I think that’s the right question. We’ve discussed the question of accrediting before---maybe conducted by societies---but there was a resounding lack of interest in this idea (or at least concern about the effort involved). A little lower down the scale, are there international standards for journal publishing?---not to be confused with checklists of how to recognize an illegitimate journal, but voluntary compliance lists of features that every legitimate journal should have? In addition to discussing accrediting, we also discussed improving the capacity of “low resourced” journals to get into compliance. Maybe creating a checklist is a start (supplemented by a resource base---how to get indexed, how to format papers, editing standards, etc.)?

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 5:44 AM
To: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

We seem to have some more new jargon -- "low resourcing"  -- which causes a journal to be illegitimate. Perhaps they are referring to the very low cost APCs charged by most new wave journals. These certainly do preclude meeting some of the rich journal best practice standards, which can be expensive. Or maybe they mean something else. Is the term defined in the article?

Susan Murray

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:09:15 AM12/7/17
to Glenn Hampson, David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com
Please see www.journalquality.info The associated assessment questionnaire is much longer and involves time-consuming verification mechanisms.

Please note that existing initiatives should be researched and built on, rather than re-invented?

Kind regards,
Susan

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:10:00 AM12/7/17
to Glenn Hampson, David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com

Not to be a broken record, but once again it’s important not to confuse the question of publishing standards with the much less subtle and much more binary issue of fraudulent business practices. There’s no reason for anyone to call a “low-resourced” journal predatory or deceptive if it isn’t lying about its business practices.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 8:02 AM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>, "osi20...@googlegroups.com" <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

I agree David----I think that’s the right question. We’ve discussed the question of accrediting before---maybe conducted by societies---but there was a resounding lack of interest in this idea (or at least concern about the effort involved). A little lower down the scale, are there international standards for journal publishing?---not to be confused with checklists of how to recognize an illegitimate journal, but voluntary compliance lists of features that every legitimate journal should have? In addition to discussing accrediting, we also discussed improving the capacity of “low resourced” journals to get into compliance. Maybe creating a checklist is a start (supplemented by a resource base---how to get indexed, how to format papers, editing standards, etc.)?

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 5:44 AM
To: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

We seem to have some more new jargon -- "low resourcing"  -- which causes a journal to be illegitimate. Perhaps they are referring to the very low cost APCs charged by most new wave journals. These certainly do preclude meeting some of the rich journal best practice standards, which can be expensive. Or maybe they mean something else. Is the term defined in the article?

 

It also seems confusing to call a journal that publishes legitimate research "illegitimate." Perhaps "substandard" is a better term, given that it is defined as failing to meet certain presumed standards. The question then becomes just what these standards are?


David


On Dec 5, 2017, at 3:00 PM, "Glenn Hampson" <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Alice Meadows has written an excellent piece in today’s Scholarly Kitchen (http://bit.ly/2ntRfTL) highlighting the recent research work of David Moher, Larissa Shamseer, and Kelly Cobey on “predatory” publishing. Among the researcher’s recommendations are that:

 

1.       “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”

2.       “…there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem.”*

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

*Maybe OSI can help with this.

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

<image001.jpg>

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal”. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem

 

From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
To: gham...@nationalscience.org
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen

 

mage removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

mage removed by sender.

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen

mage removed by sender. Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An In

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

mage removed by sender.

If you would prefer not to receive daily alerts from The Scholarly Kitchen, go here.

 

mage removed by sender. Informz

mage removed by sender.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:36:26 AM12/7/17
to Rick Anderson, David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com

Right. I didn’t mean to conflate these two, and they are being conflated here. There are fraudulent business practices and the hallmarks of these have been spelled out (although it wouldn’t hurt for OSI to do the same---to publish our own official checklist of deceptive practices and links to resources like think-check-submit).

I think David and I are looking at the first mixed-bag category of publications from the thread below: “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.” Pulling this apart, is there anything we can do to help the journals that are not meeting the bar, not intentionally because of deceptive practices, but unintentionally because of a lack of knowledge about best practices? This kind of slides into the low-resource issue---that if a journal editor knows about best practice standards but can’t meet the bar because of resource constraints, is there anything we can do in this case? Are there resource pools we can set up, for instance? Or are there certain minimum standards we can help define that might be more attainable (but still adequate)?

Best,

Glenn

  1. “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”

Lisa Hinchliffe

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:47:17 AM12/7/17
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 10:53:56 AM12/7/17
to Lisa Hinchliffe, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi Lisa,

 

Another good question. It’s a quote from the report featured in Alice’s recent TSK post. Even if it isn’t true, wouldn’t it still be in everyone’s best interests to clarify what standards are expected and create a pathway for people to reach these standards?

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

osi-logo-2016-25-mail

image001.jpg

Lisa Hinchliffe

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 11:10:36 AM12/7/17
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Yes, I know where the quote is from but if it is going to be the basis from which one builds a system it should be interrogated for truth. So, FWIW, I think it is fine to articulate standards and pathways. But, I question as well if there is really a single standard of excellence. And, I definitely think it is important to decouple whether a publisher (or publication - which is another difference that gets conflated a lot in these discussions) attains a given standard and whether it is a good place to publish. Lisa 

___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com




David Wojick

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 11:59:29 AM12/7/17
to osi2016-25-googlegroups.com
Yes but the Ottawa folks seem to be calling for standards-based government regulation of all illegitimate journals, not just the fraudulent ones. In fact the recent Court order against OMICS specifically says that intent is irrelevant. This is much broader than your focus on deceptive practices. We are talking about standards enforced by law. In principle these apply to all journals.

David
Inside Public Access

At 10:09 AM 12/7/2017, you wrote:
Not to be a broken record, but once again it’s important not to confuse the question of publishing standards with the much less subtle and much more binary issue of fraudulent business practices. There’s no reason for anyone to call a “low-resourced†journal predatory or deceptive if it isn’t lying about its business practices.
 
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
rick.a...@utah.edu
 
From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 8:02 AM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>, "osi20...@googlegroups.com" <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.
 
I agree David----I think that’s the right question. We’ve discussed the question of accrediting before---maybe conducted by societies---but there was a resounding lack of interest in this idea (or at least concern about the effort involved). A little lower down the scale, are there international standards for journal publishing?---not to be confused with checklists of how to recognize an illegitimate journal, but voluntary compliance lists of features that every legitimate journal should have? In addition to discussing accrediting, we also discussed improving the capacity of “low resourced†journals to get into compliance. Maybe creating a checklist is a start (supplemented by a resource base---how to get indexed, how to format papers, editing standards, etc.)?

 
Best,
 
Glenn
 
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [ mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 5:44 AM
To: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.
 
We seem to have some more new jargon -- "low resourcing"  -- which causes a journal to be illegitimate. Perhaps they are referring to the very low cost APCs charged by most new wave journals. These certainly do preclude meeting some of the rich journal best practice standards, which can be expensive. Or maybe they mean something else. Is the term defined in the article?
 
It also seems confusing to call a journal that publishes legitimate research "illegitimate." Perhaps "substandard" is a better term, given that it is defined as failing to meet certain presumed standards. The question then becomes just what these standards are?

David

On Dec 5, 2017, at 3:00 PM, "Glenn Hampson" < gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:
Alice Meadows has written an excellent piece in today’s Scholarly Kitchen (http://bit.ly/2ntRfTL) highlighting the recent research work of David Moher, Larissa Shamseer, and Kelly Cobey on “predatory†publishing. Among the researcher’s recommendations are that:
 
1.       “…any journal not meeting best pracctice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.â€
2.       “…there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal†. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem.†*
 
Best,
 
Glenn
 
 
*Maybe OSI can help with this.
 
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
<image001.jpg>
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
 
 
 
there needs to be a standard and agreed on definition of what constitutes a “predatory journal†. The definition and agreement must come from all stakeholders, not just one group in isolation. Our hope is to raise funds to be able to bring together a group of leaders from each stakeholder group for an in person meeting to gain consensus on this issue before proceeding with further activities to address the problem. It will be important to evaluate and track the success of any interventions generated to address the problem
 
From: The Scholarly Kitchen [mailto:in...@sspnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 4:51 AM
Subject: Today on The Scholarly Kitchen
 
mage removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen
OFFICIAL BLOG OF:
mage removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

New content is now available at
The Scholarly Kitchen…



Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the ie increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.
READ MORE

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 12:04:49 PM12/7/17
to Lisa Hinchliffe, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Agreed all around Lisa. The good folks on this list have been excellent interrogators over the years so please keep at it. Let me see if I’ve got this correct so far (and I apologize if this is off-track---this is also just a starting point for conversation):

 

  1. At present, there are no international standards for journal publishing (there are best practices guidelines, ethics guidelines, internal standards, etc., but no list that says a journal must do x, y and z).
  2. If journal standards were to be developed, there shouldn’t be a single standard of excellence. Would minimum standards be okay?
  3. These standards should apply to journals, not publishers (to the end products, not the producers)
  4. These standards should be voluntary for now---not accreditation standards
  5. We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by the FTC and others)
  6. We (OSI) should begin the process of improving the capacity of journals that aren’t meeting standards, and over time, discourage publishing in these journals if they don’t improve

 

This thread is an attempt to address the issue that’s left in the wake of the deceptive journals issue---the fact that even if we move strongly to isolate deceptive journals and call out deceptive practices, there are still a great many journals that aren’t carrying research the way we expect (as David has noted). This might mean they’re conducting peer review that’s really just editorial review, covering fields that aren’t actual science, and so on---not “deceptive” practices, but not accepted practices either. So how do we address the concerns posed by this group of journals?

 

Once we can get a head of steam on this we can create a Slack group for folks who are interested.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

osi-logo-2016-25-mail

2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

 

 

 

From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 8:11 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

Yes, I know where the quote is from but if it is going to be the basis from which one builds a system it should be interrogated for truth. So, FWIW, I think it is fine to articulate standards and pathways. But, I question as well if there is really a single standard of excellence. And, I definitely think it is important to decouple whether a publisher (or publication - which is another difference that gets conflated a lot in these discussions) attains a given standard and whether it is a good place to publish. Lisa 

image001.jpg

Lisa Hinchliffe

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 12:09:52 PM12/7/17
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I'm not sure on #5. I'll need someone more educated about regulation and the FTC to help refine: 

                 We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by the FTC and others)

Did the FTC identify individual journals as deceptive, or the publisher? If the former, then only discourage for those journals or the rest in the publisher portfolio as well? 

Lisa


___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com




Joyce Ogburn

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 12:17:15 PM12/7/17
to Susan Murray, Glenn Hampson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Thanks for sharing this, Susan. I agree we should not reinvent but build on or adapt. Joyce

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Joyce L. Ogburn
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to osi20...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/osi2016-25.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 12:20:50 PM12/7/17
to David Wojick, osi2016-25-googlegroups.com

But the “standards” on which the FTC injunction focuses are simple standards of honesty. Look at the behaviors OMICS et al. are told to stop engaging in (see pages 16-19 of the order): every single one of them is a deceptive behavior. All of the things the defendants are positively required to do involve disclosure of their practices. None of them has to do with editorial quality or standards. The FTC finding is very tightly focused on deceptive behavior. If it sets any kind of precedent for journal publishers generally, it’s a precedent that says “don’t lie about your publishing practices.”

 

Rick

age removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

OFFICIAL BLOG OF:

age removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

 

New content is now available at

The Scholarly Kitchen…

age removed by sender. The Scholarly Kitchen

Dec 5, 2017  by  Alice Meadows

Illegitimate Journals and How to Stop Them: An Interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer

 

Illegitimate – or predatory – journals are on the ie increase. What’s more, authors from high-, middle-, and low-income countries are now known to be publishing in them. Find out why this is the case and how we can work as a community to help stop their spread, in this interview with Kelly Cobey and Larissa Shamseer of Centre for Journalology, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, to coincide with their new paper on the topic in Nature Human Behavior.

READ MORE

--

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 12:56:23 PM12/7/17
to Lisa Hinchliffe, Rick Anderson, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative

We can certainly rephrase this (I didn’t mean to suggest that the FTC definition should be the standard). For instance, we’ve discussed here what kind of practices we might consider deceptive----Rick’s red light yellow light model. And then there’s the Think-Check-Submit model, COPE’s model and others.

 

As for the publisher/journal distinction, the FTC action targeted publishers whose portfolios (at least in the case of OMICS) each included hundreds of deceptive journals. But when individual authors are trying to decide where to publish and why, their point of contact is going to be with the journal---is it indexed, is it advertising a fake impact factor, etc. So while it makes perfect sense for FTC regulatory action to target producers, it might make sure sense for OSI guidelines to focus on the journal. Yes no maybe?

 

From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]

Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 9:10 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

 

I'm not sure on #5. I'll need someone more educated about regulation and the FTC to help refine: 

image001.jpg

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 7, 2017, 2:54:05 PM12/7/17
to The Open Scholarship Initiative

I’m incorporating David’s points about regulation into this list (or attempting to) and also correcting for the FTC definition question. New items are in red.

 

    1. At present, there are no international standards for journal publishing (there are best practices guidelines, ethics guidelines, internal standards, etc., but no list that says a journal must do x, y and z).
    2. If journal standards were to be developed, there shouldn’t be a single standard of excellence. Would minimum standards be okay?
    3. These standards should apply to journals, not publishers (to the end products, not the producers)
    4. These standards should be voluntary for now---not accreditation standards
    1. We (OSI) should create (and promote through the RSComm website) an accepted definition of what constitutes deceptive publishing. Maybe this is followed up with a blacklist, maybe not---but at minimum we agree on the definition.
    2. We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by OSI)
    1. We (OSI) should begin the process of improving the capacity of journals that aren’t meeting standards, and over time, discourage publishing in these journals if they don’t improve
    1. We (OSI) should carefully review the recent FTC ruling against OMICS and provide feedback to the agency on whether the discussion section of this ruling contains language that might lead to unintended consequences for scholarly publishing (such as defining peer review too rigidly). We should also request input on what kinds of new requirements would be created for the industry (like disclosing APCs in all calls for papers). I have to assume that many publishers are on top of this already, though. Is this an area where we can/should all collaborate (providing a sort of broad scholcomm perspective on this---not a lobbying effort but a joint comment?)

     

     

     

    From: Glenn Hampson [mailto:gham...@nationalscience.org]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 9:56 AM
    To: 'Lisa Hinchliffe' <lisali...@gmail.com>
    Cc: 'Rick Anderson' <rick.a...@utah.edu>; 'David Wojick' <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: RE: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    We can certainly rephrase this (I didn’t mean to suggest that the FTC definition should be the standard). For instance, we’ve discussed here what kind of practices we might consider deceptive----Rick’s red light yellow light model. And then there’s the Think-Check-Submit model, COPE’s model and others.

     

    As for the publisher/journal distinction, the FTC action targeted publishers whose portfolios (at least in the case of OMICS) each included hundreds of deceptive journals. But when individual authors are trying to decide where to publish and why, their point of contact is going to be with the journal---is it indexed, is it advertising a fake impact factor, etc. So while it makes perfect sense for FTC regulatory action to target producers, it might make sure sense for OSI guidelines to focus on the journal. Yes no maybe?

     

    From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 9:10 AM
    To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    I'm not sure on #5. I'll need someone more educated about regulation and the FTC to help refine: 

    image001.jpg

    Rick Anderson

    unread,
    Dec 7, 2017, 2:57:42 PM12/7/17
    to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

    With regard to point #8 below, and strictly for what it’s worth, earlier this week (in the Scholarly Kitchen) I offered some discussion of the preliminary injunction against OMICS et al.:

     

    https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/04/federal-trade-commission-national-institutes-health-take-action-predatory-publishing-practices/

     

    Please note that I’m not putting this forward as the last word (or anything close to it), but some might find it helpful as a starting point.

     

    ---

    Rick Anderson

    Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

    Marriott Library, University of Utah

    rick.a...@utah.edu

     

    From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Date: Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 12:54 PM
    To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: RE: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    I’m incorporating David’s points about regulation into this list (or attempting to) and also correcting for the FTC definition question. New items are in red.

     

    1.       At present, there are no international standards for journal publishing (there are best practices guidelines, ethics guidelines, internal standards, etc., but no list that says a journal must do x, y and z).

    2.       If journal standards were to be developed, there shouldn’t be a single standard of excellence. Would minimum standards be okay?

    3.       These standards should apply to journals, not publishers (to the end products, not the producers)

    4.       These standards should be voluntary for now---not accreditation standards

    5.       We (OSI) should create (and promote through the RSComm website) an accepted definition of what constitutes deceptive publishing. Maybe this is followed up with a blacklist, maybe not---but at minimum we agree on the definition.

    6.       We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by OSI)

    7.       We (OSI) should begin the process of improving the capacity of journals that aren’t meeting standards, and over time, discourage publishing in these journals if they don’t improve

    8.       We (OSI) should carefully review the recent FTC ruling against OMICS and provide feedback to the agency on whether the discussion section of this ruling contains language that might lead to unintended consequences for scholarly publishing (such as defining peer review too rigidly). We should also request input on what kinds of new requirements would be created for the industry (like disclosing APCs in all calls for papers). I have to assume that many publishers are on top of this already, though. Is this an area where we can/should all collaborate (providing a sort of broad scholcomm perspective on this---not a lobbying effort but a joint comment?)

     

     

     

    From: Glenn Hampson [mailto:gham...@nationalscience.org]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 9:56 AM
    To: 'Lisa Hinchliffe' <lisali...@gmail.com>
    Cc: 'Rick Anderson' <rick.a...@utah.edu>; 'David Wojick' <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: RE: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    We can certainly rephrase this (I didn’t mean to suggest that the FTC definition should be the standard). For instance, we’ve discussed here what kind of practices we might consider deceptive----Rick’s red light yellow light model. And then there’s the Think-Check-Submit model, COPE’s model and others.

     

    As for the publisher/journal distinction, the FTC action targeted publishers whose portfolios (at least in the case of OMICS) each included hundreds of deceptive journals. But when individual authors are trying to decide where to publish and why, their point of contact is going to be with the journal---is it indexed, is it advertising a fake impact factor, etc. So while it makes perfect sense for FTC regulatory action to target producers, it might make sure sense for OSI guidelines to focus on the journal. Yes no maybe?

     

    From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 9:10 AM
    To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    I'm not sure on #5. I'll need someone more educated about regulation and the FTC to help refine: 

     

                     We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by the FTC and others)

     

    Did the FTC identify individual journals as deceptive, or the publisher? If the former, then only discourage for those journals or the rest in the publisher portfolio as well? 

     

    Lisa

     


    ___

    Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
    lisali...@gmail.com

     

     

    On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

    Agreed all around Lisa. The good folks on this list have been excellent interrogators over the years so please keep at it. Let me see if I’ve got this correct so far (and I apologize if this is off-track---this is also just a starting point for conversation):

     

    1.       At present, there are no international standards for journal publishing (there are best practices guidelines, ethics guidelines, internal standards, etc., but no list that says a journal must do x, y and z).

    2.       If journal standards were to be developed, there shouldn’t be a single standard of excellence. Would minimum standards be okay?

    3.       These standards should apply to journals, not publishers (to the end products, not the producers)

    4.       These standards should be voluntary for now---not accreditation standards

    5.       We (OSI) should join NIH in discouraging publishing in journals that are deceptive (as defined by the FTC and others)

    6.       We (OSI) should begin the process of improving the capacity of journals that aren’t meeting standards, and over time, discourage publishing in these journals if they don’t improve

     

    This thread is an attempt to address the issue that’s left in the wake of the deceptive journals issue---the fact that even if we move strongly to isolate deceptive journals and call out deceptive practices, there are still a great many journals that aren’t carrying research the way we expect (as David has noted). This might mean they’re conducting peer review that’s really just editorial review, covering fields that aren’t actual science, and so on---not “deceptive” practices, but not accepted practices either. So how do we address the concerns posed by this group of journals?

     

    Once we can get a head of steam on this we can create a Slack group for folks who are interested.

     

    Best,

     

    Glenn

     

     

    Glenn Hampson
    Executive Director
    Science Communication Institute (SCI)
    Program Director
    Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

    si-logo-2016-25-mail

    2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
    (206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

     

     

     

    From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 8:11 AM


    To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    Yes, I know where the quote is from but if it is going to be the basis from which one builds a system it should be interrogated for truth. So, FWIW, I think it is fine to articulate standards and pathways. But, I question as well if there is really a single standard of excellence. And, I definitely think it is important to decouple whether a publisher (or publication - which is another difference that gets conflated a lot in these discussions) attains a given standard and whether it is a good place to publish. Lisa 


    ___

    Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
    lisali...@gmail.com

     

     

    On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

    Hi Lisa,

     

    Another good question. It’s a quote from the report featured in Alice’s recent TSK post. Even if it isn’t true, wouldn’t it still be in everyone’s best interests to clarify what standards are expected and create a pathway for people to reach these standards?

     

    Best,

     

    Glenn

     

    Glenn Hampson
    Executive Director
    Science Communication Institute (SCI)
    Program Director
    Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

    si-logo-2016-25-mail

    1.       “…any journal not meeting best practice standards, whether due to intentionally deceptive practices, low resourcing, or lack of knowledge, or otherwise, in our view are nonetheless a poor entity to ‘publish’ in. The term ‘illegitimate journals’ may better reflect the range of journals that fail to meet expected best practice standards.”

    Glenn Hampson

    unread,
    Dec 7, 2017, 3:54:41 PM12/7/17
    to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

    Thanks Rick,

     

    For the benefit of our listserv members, here are your bullet points regarding what the FTC ruling is taking issue with:

     

    • Falsely claiming to provide rigorous peer review of articles submitted for publication in their journals;
    • Claiming as “editors” individuals who never received manuscripts to review or edit, or who never even agreed to be appointed as editors — some of whom say that OMICS ignored or refused their demands that they be removed from journal mastheads;
    • Sending solicitations to potential authors on behalf of other academics, without the latter’s permission or knowledge;
    • Giving their journals names “nearly identical to other respected journals, which has led to consumers mistakenly submitting articles to Defendants’ journal”;
    • Failing to disclose publication fees to authors until after their articles had been submitted and published, then levying those fees on the authors, continuing to demand payment after the authors had requested that their articles be withdrawn;
    • Misrepresenting the Impact Factors of their journals;
    • Falsely claiming that their journals are included in prestigious professional and academic indexes;
    • Organizing putatively academic or professional conferences and seeking to increase attendance by falsely advertising the participation of respected individuals (who have, in some cases, had to resort to legal action in order to get their names removed from the conference advertisements).

     

    What point #8 of our proposed “action list” is getting at are the proposed definitions on which the FTC’s remedies will be based. But you know, rereading the injunction again (http://bit.ly/2AHYA8b) I’m not seeing the language that concerns you, David---narrowly defining peer review, requiring APC disclosure, etc. I also thought this was there on my first read but my eyes must be tired today and I’m not finding anything now. Can you please point out which line(s) you’re referring to? If there’s no there there, we can certainly take out this point.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Glenn

    image001.jpg

    Rick Anderson

    unread,
    Dec 7, 2017, 4:05:58 PM12/7/17
    to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

    Glenn, the requirement to disclose APCs is on page 6 under the header “Deceptive Failure to Disclose Publishing Fees.” OMICS stands accused of hiding their fees until after publication, and then “disclosing” their fees by sending invoices (surprise!).

     

    The injunction contains no narrow definition of peer review. It refers to peer review only in broad terms, and at no point enjoins the defendants to provide it (only to refrain from lying about providing it).

    i-logo-2016-25-mail

    2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
    (206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

     

     

     

    From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]
    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 8:11 AM


    To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    Yes, I know where the quote is from but if it is going to be the basis from which one builds a system it should be interrogated for truth. So, FWIW, I think it is fine to articulate standards and pathways. But, I question as well if there is really a single standard of excellence. And, I definitely think it is important to decouple whether a publisher (or publication - which is another difference that gets conflated a lot in these discussions) attains a given standard and whether it is a good place to publish. Lisa 


    ___

    Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
    lisali...@gmail.com

     

     

    On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

    Hi Lisa,

     

    Another good question. It’s a quote from the report featured in Alice’s recent TSK post. Even if it isn’t true, wouldn’t it still be in everyone’s best interests to clarify what standards are expected and create a pathway for people to reach these standards?

     

    Best,

     

    Glenn

     

    Glenn Hampson
    Executive Director
    Science Communication Institute (SCI)
    Program Director
    Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

    i-logo-2016-25-mail

    Anthony Watkinson

    unread,
    Dec 8, 2017, 5:12:36 AM12/8/17
    to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

    I do not want to break in to a correspondence which I have only glanced at but it may be relevant if I refer to a survey we (CIBER and Carol Tenopir’s UTK group) did for Sloan (2013-14) which included an international survey not just developed countries for the Sloan Foundation and (without looking back at our publications and report) my memory is that there was a consensus that there was something called “proper” peer review that everyone felt was generally recognised. I personally was surprised that no-one questioned the PLOS One methodology only mission. Maybe (as we have now discovered with our current work) they just thought PLOS One was a specially quick journal BUT nobody picked up the different approach to peer review.

    Anthony

     

    From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Glenn Hampson


    Sent: 07 December 2017 19:54
    To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative'

    image001.jpg

    David Wojick

    unread,
    Dec 8, 2017, 6:51:06 AM12/8/17
    to osi20...@googlegroups.com
    This is a potentially useful set of proposed accreditation standards, Susan. I would say that the multiple levels make it fairly complex. Are the questionnaires and and verification stuff available? I did not see that in a quick look at the website. 

    However, this sort of thing is not suitable for something like a federal regulation. Regulations define crimes (failure to comply) so they need to be both precise and minimal. This is why I am concerned about the idea of using best practices, as these tend to be ambitious rather than minimal. 

    In particular we do not want to mandate practices that only rich corporations or organizations can achieve, that create economic barriers to entry, that prevent innovation, that punish innocent people, or that rule out acceptable practices. These are the standard problems of over regulation. 

    Regulating the journal industry is a serious challenge. Good regulation is very difficult.

    David

    David Wojick

    unread,
    Dec 8, 2017, 8:25:27 AM12/8/17
    to osi20...@googlegroups.com
    Yes, journals are not required to do peer review. The requirement is that if you say you do peer review then you must do a certain kind or amount. This raises the legal question as to what that kind or amount is? It appears from the discussion section of the Order that the cursory form of peer review that OMICS and the other rapid response journals do is not acceptable. What is minimally acceptable (the threshold of compliance) is far from clear, so the law is unclear at this point.

    Answering such questions is why major new regulations usually have extensive definitions sections. Case law is considerably messier. If the FTC issues parallel rules then they might try to resolve this vagueness, including via public notice and comment.

    David

    <image001.jpg>

    From: Lisa Hinchliffe [mailto:lisali...@gmail.com]

    Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2017 8:11 AM


    To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
    Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
    Subject: Re: You say predatory, and I say deceptive. You say new wave, and I say illegitimate.

     

    Yes, I know where the quote is from but if it is going to be the basis from which one builds a system it should be interrogated for truth. So, FWIW, I think it is fine to articulate standards and pathways. But, I question as well if there is really a single standard of excellence. And, I definitely think it is important to decouple whether a publisher (or publication - which is another difference that gets conflated a lot in these discussions) attains a given standard and whether it is a good place to publish. Lisa 


    ___

    Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
    lisali...@gmail.com

     

     

    On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 9:53 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

    Hi Lisa,

     

    Another good question. It’s a quote from the report featured in Alice’s recent TSK post. Even if it isn’t true, wouldn’t it still be in everyone’s best interests to clarify what standards are expected and create a pathway for people to reach these standards?

     

    Best,

     

    Glenn

     

    Glenn Hampson
    Executive Director
    Science Communication Institute (SCI)
    Program Director
    Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

    <image001.jpg>

    Rick Anderson

    unread,
    Dec 8, 2017, 10:54:30 AM12/8/17
    to David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com

    > Yes, journals are not required to do peer review. The requirement is that if you say you do

    > peer review then you must do a certain kind or amount.

     

    Not exactly. The requirement is that if you _offer peer review in return for money_, you must actually provide peer review. In other words, OMICS is enjoined from defrauding its authors. (I doubt that simply lying about providing peer review would have brought OMICS to the attention of the FTC – the problem is that they offer peer review in return for a payment, and then seem not to actually provide the promised service.)

     

    > This raises the legal question as to what that kind or amount is?

     

    That’s not actually the question here. In fact, just the opposite: the injunction takes it as given that “under standard industry practice, the peer review process often takes several weeks or even months and involves multiple rounds of substantive feedback from experts in the related field” (see page 5). David, as you’ve pointed out yourself, you do not know much about journal publishing, so as someone who has worked as an editor, who has written many peer-reviewed articles, and who has served as a peer reviewer for many articles, let me assure you that the Court’s understanding of the “standard industry practice” with regard to peer review is accurate. Obviously, the industry standard isn’t the amount of time it takes in and of itself; the industry standard is to provide actual, meaningful review—which, when it’s actually done, takes quite a bit of time. When a publisher claims to provide real and meaningful peer review, but manages to publish submitted articles within a matter of days, it’s reasonable to infer (as the Court did) that something substantially less than real and meaningful peer review is being provided. Again, though, the problem isn’t the quality of the peer review they provide; the problem is the fraud. I doubt very much that this would be a matter for regulatory oversight by the FTC if it weren’t for the fact that these publishers are charging for the service in question.

     

    David, if you’re interested in learning about how peer review works, there’s a good one-page primer at https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16.

     

    ---

    Rick Anderson

    Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

    Marriott Library, University of Utah

    rick.a...@utah.edu

     

    Glenn Hampson

    unread,
    Dec 8, 2017, 12:28:19 PM12/8/17
    to David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com

    Hi David,

     

    Thanks. Since neither of us are lawyers, maybe one of the dozen or so legal experts on this list can help us figure this out. Here’s where the ruling mentions peer review (page 4 of the injunction):

     

    1) Misrepresentations Regarding Journal Publishing

     

    The evidence produced by the FTC demonstrates that Defendants engaged in probable

    misrepresentations regarding journal publishing.  On the OMICS website, for example, OMICS

    makes numerous representations indicating that it follows standard peer-review practices. (See

    PX12 Att. L at 657, 773, 748, Ex. 12 to Mot. for Prelim Inj., ECF No. 9-12).1 Under standard

    industry practice, the peer review process often takes several weeks or even months and

    involves multiple rounds of substantive feedback from experts in the related field. (See PX13

    ¶¶ 9–10). In contrast, the FTC has provided evidence that Defendants’ peer review practices, in

    numerous instances, took a matter of days and contained no comments or substantive feedback.

    (See PX04 ¶ 4; PX07 ¶ 4; PX06 ¶¶ 5–6; PX09 ¶ 5; PX10 ¶ 10).

     

    So, what you’re saying David, is that the court has decided there’s such a thing as “standard peer-review practices,” and that OMICS clearly is not following them. Correct? The latter part of this statement is true (that OMICS is lying about following standard practices---because it’s practices are clearly not what the industry considers standard peer review). But it’s the former part of this statement that you find problematic---that there is such a thing as “standard industry practice” to begin with (or at least that this practice hasn’t been precisely defined). Correct? According to the language in the above paragraph, is there supposed to be an “Attachment L”  where peer review is defined (if so, the copy of the injunction posted online seems to be missing this)? It isn’t defined in the definitions section either.

     

    So to our legal beagles, is this a thing? If a business says it’s a car wash, and people pay for a car wash, but their car only gets blow-dried instead, is this okay? Do there need to be “standard car wash practices” written down somewhere? Or is it sufficient that the community of car wash devotees has a reasonable understanding of what car wash means, and that if one runs a car wash and doesn’t actually wash your car, then they are being deceptive (as opposed to original thinkers)?

     

    That’s item one David. You also mentioned you were concerned about new requirements regarding APC disclosure. Are these requirements also inferred from the general language of this court order or is there some specific paragraph we should reference?

     

    Thanks,

     

    Glenn

     

     

    Glenn Hampson
    Executive Director
    Science Communication Institute (SCI)
    Program Director
    Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

    osi-logo-2016-25-mail

    2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
    (206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org

     

     

    image001.jpg
    Reply all
    Reply to author
    Forward