Dear Stephen Mason ,

The journal “International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology” is published by the 'publisher' “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” and this publisher is mentioned in Beall’s list:

https://beallslist.net/

This is a red flag that you are dealing with a potential predatory journal. However, the matter is more complicated than that. This ‘publisher’ named “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” (SERSC) seems to have hijacked the journal “International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology” from NADIA, a publisher located in Australia. This is the real journal that use to have a legit Scopus indexing was/is: https://nadiapub.com/journals/ijast/

they are the real owner of ISSN: 2005-4238 https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2005-4238

with location: PO Box 5075, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7005 Australia

The other ‘publisher’ use as location: PO Box 5014, Sandy Bay TAS 7005, Australia

It seems to me that NADIA publishes the original subscription-based journal (and it seems that after two years they make the papers fully accessible). At some point the scam started with the people behind the fake society SERSC.

See for example:

Toptsis, A., Chaturvedi, R. A., & Feroze, A. (2009). Kohonen-guided Parallel Bidirectional Voronoiassisted Heuristic Search. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 5, 15-34. (see attached file called original paper 2009)

And the duplicated paper by the hijackers:

Toptsis, A., Chaturvedi, R. A., & Feroze, A. (2017). Kohonen-guided Parallel Bidirectional Voronoiassisted Heuristic Search. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 23, 15-34. (see attached file called Hijacked version 2017)

So definitely a sign something is seriously wrong. Apart from not paying anything I think not much can be done but hope that your paper will not be published by this ‘publisher’ and you might be able to publish your work elsewhere on the long run.

Best regards.

PS. It is even worse…the “Science and Engineering Research Support soCiety” seems to be a legit organization from South Korea:

https://uia.org/s/or/en/1122274185

but the “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” from ‘Australia’ corresponding to:

http://www.sersc.org/

is not. So it looks like a double hijack operation were the scammer stole the identity of a society (with little or no internet activity) and in name of this society ‘publish’ journals that belong to subscription-based journals from another publisher and use the obtained indexing from the original owners as a decoy.

I will add this case to my list which I try to keep updated in the discussion:

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

Dear Stephen Mason ,

The journal “International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology” is published by the 'publisher' “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” and this publisher is mentioned in Beall’s list:

https://beallslist.net/

This is a red flag that you are dealing with a potential predatory journal. However, the matter is more complicated than that. This ‘publisher’ named “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” (SERSC) seems to have hijacked the journal “International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology” from NADIA, a publisher located in Australia. This is the real journal that use to have a legit Scopus indexing was/is: https://nadiapub.com/journals/ijast/

they are the real owner of ISSN: 2005-4238 https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2005-4238

with location: PO Box 5075, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7005 Australia

The other ‘publisher’ use as location: PO Box 5014, Sandy Bay TAS 7005, Australia

It seems to me that NADIA publishes the original subscription-based journal (and it seems that after two years they make the papers fully accessible). At some point the scam started with the people behind the fake society SERSC.

See for example:

Toptsis, A., Chaturvedi, R. A., & Feroze, A. (2009). Kohonen-guided Parallel Bidirectional Voronoiassisted Heuristic Search. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 5, 15-34. (see attached file called original paper 2009)

And the duplicated paper by the hijackers:

Toptsis, A., Chaturvedi, R. A., & Feroze, A. (2017). Kohonen-guided Parallel Bidirectional Voronoiassisted Heuristic Search. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 23, 15-34. (see attached file called Hijacked version 2017)

So definitely a sign something is seriously wrong. Apart from not paying anything I think not much can be done but hope that your paper will not be published by this ‘publisher’ and you might be able to publish your work elsewhere on the long run.

Best regards.

PS. It is even worse…the “Science and Engineering Research Support soCiety” seems to be a legit organization from South Korea:

https://uia.org/s/or/en/1122274185

but the “Science and Engineering Research Support Society” from ‘Australia’ corresponding to:

http://www.sersc.org/

is not. So it looks like a double hijack operation were the scammer stole the identity of a society (with little or no internet activity) and in name of this society ‘publish’ journals that belong to subscription-based journals from another publisher and use the obtained indexing from the original owners as a decoy.

I will add this case to my list which I try to keep updated in the discussion:

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

Dear Rob,

Thank you so much for all of that wealth of information. It is all really very helpful. I would like to add that I never paid any monies to the fake SERSC version of IJAST, nor to anywhere else and, as far as I am aware, my article has never been published. By the way, many of the contact details for SERSC were actually given to me directly by Elsevier and SCOPUS, which makes me wonder if they too have been drawn into this scam, unawares, so I shall have to contact them about this. Would you mind if I share the details of your message, above, with Elsevier and SCOPUS, as I need to get more clarification from them on whether I can still publish my article elsewhere? However, many, many, thanks for letting me know in no uncertain terms about what has been going on. Much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Stephen

Dear Stephen Mason , you're welcome and feel free to use the info I gathered. By the way indeed both Scopus and SCImago accidentally or at least while being unaware include wrong info in their databases (homepages of the fake/cloned/hijacked journal etc.). Although in SCImago researchers from all over the world indicate concerns in the comment section underneath the page of each journal I feel they don't respond or when they do it takes a long time. This experience makes me wonder whether their quality control system (if any) is really that solid as we all anticipate.

PS. If you are absolutely sure they will not publish your paper regardless on whether you pay or not, I hope for you that you can submit your manuscript elsewhere.

Best regards.

Dear Rob,

Please maintain your scam list further. It will be extremely useful to avoid predatory publications. If I find cases, I will let you know.

Much appreciated for the information, Sir Rob Keller that will help. Thanks to all.

Dear Rob,

Thank you so much for the additional information that you posted one day ago, as well as your very initial response, as it is crucial for me and everyone else to know these vitally important details. Thank you also for allowing me to pass on what you know about IJAST, NADIA and SERSC to Elsevier and SCOPUS. I had wondered how Elsevier and SCOPUS had managed to obtain what has turned out to be the suspicious contact details of IJAST and SERSC, but assumed that the email addresses that they gave to me had to be legitimate because they were directly provided by the two former organisations (Elsevier and SCOPUS), both of which I assumed were infallible, so this is worrying. When I managed to eventually get through to SCOPUS this last weekend, after months of trying in vain to contact them, due to the Corona virus lock-down, they pulled up the NADIA version of IJAST themselves and then told me to write the latter an email addressed to [email protected], and explain the problem once more, but I haven't even heard from them, either. I now don't even know if the NADIA version of IJAST is genuine as well?

Anyway, any further information that you can provide will be warmly welcomed, and thank you once more for your invaluable knowledge and help regarding this matter.

In closing this message, I really thought that I had done my homework regarding IJAST, NADIA and SERSC, before responding to them (and even got two other academics to check them out, as well), and was so sure that it was all so genuine. Even Elsevier and SCOPUS led me to exactly the same conclusion, but these scammers are getting so immensely good and convincing in what they do that I wish that they could be stopped and given hefty penalties, like long prison sentences. This fraudulent and downright criminal activity is actually harming all of us, not just individual scientists, groups of scientists, and both party's research, but also the wider society and the World in general.

Anyway, do keep me posted, and I shall also let you know of any developments at my end too, including any re-submission of my current work to another journal.

Many kind regards,

Stephen

Dear academics and researchers,

I have remarked that the journal International Journal of Control and Automation (IJCA) appears for two publishers NADIA and Science and Engineering Research Support Society (SERSC). With the same ISSN in both journal web site in NADIA and SERSC:

ISSN: 2005-4297 (Print) ISSN: 2207-6387 (Online)

Web site for NADIA https://nadiapub.com/journals/ijca/ Web site for SERSC http://sersc.org/journals/index.php/IJCA/about

Could you please let me know which is the publisher that is the legitimate publisher and approved by Scopus.

Thanks in advance,

Ahmed

Dear Ahmed Maarof ,

It is for sure that the journals from:

http://www.sersc.org/

are fake, this ‘publisher’ is mentioned in the Beall’s list:

https://beallslist.net/

The journal “International Journal of Control and Automation (IJCA)” as published by “Science and Engineering Research Support Society (SERSC)” is discontinued in Scopus (see enclosed file). Scopus still mentions indexing to "present": https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100197912 but the most updated info (enclosed file) indicate discontinued. The system is (extremely) slow to give the updated info in the Scopus sources pages but be sure it will change in discontinued.

Best regards.

PS. See also the above discussion (the Scopus indexing for “International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology” mentions the right publisher NADIA but with the wrong homepage https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100829147 ). The latest list of discontinued titles mentions this journal as being no longer indexed in Scopus but here they mention as publisher the fake one (Science and Engineering Research Support Society). So Stephen Mason indeed Scopus makes a mess out of this and to me it is a bit unclear whether NADIA is really legit (although they correctly mention no Scopus indexing while the fake SERSC one does). They are to say the least not that pro-active: You would expect that NADIA would mention prominently the existence of a fake and fraudulent player that hijacked their journals.

I start to doubt whether: https://nadiapub.com/journals/ijca/ (and thereby all journals on the site https://nadiapub.com/ ) is (still) legit.

I found (see enclosed file) several papers with the copyright mentioning SERSC. I start to think that NADIA at some point stopped and someone took over the content and started the NADIA website. In order to lure even more researchers, they started the SERSC site as well (or someone hijacked the entire NADIA site or there has never been a NADIA website of the original publisher NADIA). But the paper (and many other examples) seem to suggest a connection for sure.

That the SERSC operation is fake is clear to me and the status of the NADIA site is (looking at the mentioning of SERSC in the various papers) to say the least suspect.

Unbelievable what a mess this turns out to be. Stephen Mason this interpretation would explain the lack of response from the ‘NADIA people’ you experienced.

PS. I just saw that NADIA is included in the update of the Beall's list:

https://beallslist.net/#update mentioning relation to SERSC...

See enclosed files:

From SERSC site:

International Journal of Control and Automation Vol. 11, No. 1 (2018), pp.1-12 with paper:

Scenario-based Log Dataset for Combating the Insider Threat

From NADIA site:

International Journal of Control and Automation Vol. 11, No. 1 (2018), pp.1-14

http//dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijca.2018.11.1.01

Sliding Mode Control Compared to PID Control Applied for a 4 Cables Parallel Robot

So not even the same papers! But both at the bottom of the first page mention:

ISSN: 2005-4297 IJCA Copyright © 2018 SERSC Australia

So, two journals for the same price…using the same name, the same ISSN number and they both mentioning SERSC (as the so-called organization behind all it). This is a violation of basically everything that has something to do with honest and genuine publishing. Really sad.

I would like to add one more journal from NADIA which is cloned by SERSC international journal of grid and distributed computing, it is ESCI journal, when i search it on web of science master list i found link of original publisher i.e nadiapub.com, still many researchers and authors publishing their work with many cloned journals of SERSC, Why?

I enquired about this to publisher they mailed me

Dear Author, Greetings! In regards to your inquiry, please be informed that NADIA is the authentic publisher of IJFGCN. You can check the ISSN center at https://portal.issn.org/api/search?search[]=MUST=allissnbis=%222233-7857%22&search_id=4281118 and the DOI portal at https://search.crossref.org/?q=+2233-7857. Thank you!

Best regards,

Dear Mangesh M. Ghonge ,

Good catch. If you look at the following paper:

http://article.nadiapub.com/IJGDC/vol11_no12/1.pdf

you see that also with the journal “international journal of grid and distributed computing” SERSC underneath the page.

In the meantime, it is discontinued in Scopus:

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100806998&tip=sid&clean=0

Indeed, the NADIA ‘version’ of this journal is still indexed in ESCI (I expect that they will be removed soon).

Caution! As mentioned in my earlier reply I strongly think that your finding underlines my conclusion that nowadays NADIA publisher and SERSC are the same (and predatory!). Advice: stay away from this mess.

Best regards.

PS. Why people still fall for this? Well you need to look extremely careful to discover the deception. Although the vague location details from SERSC (and inclusion in the Beall’s list) are red flags.

Update 14-11-2020: NADIA is now included in the Beall's list (with the remark that they are linked to SERSC)

Counter: If our paper is published by a predatory journal and holds no value there then can we claim it back and/re send it to another authentic journal?

In that case, make sure your paper no where available on search engines, else paper will show self plagiarism, which also not accepted. When your send paper to journal, and you signed copyright form, then publisher holds the copyright. There are different cases based on journal policies. So better be cautious before submitting paper to any journal.

https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/

If they got hijack maybe solve later. check it twice before submitted.

Dear Danung Nur Adli ,

Indeed, it is wise to check first. The best and most updated versions of both the list of (potentially) predatory journals and publishers and the list of known examples of hijacked journals are:

https://beallslist.net/ (Inclusion of potentially predatory publishers) and update version https://beallslist.net/#update

https://beallslist.net/standalone-journals/ (inclusion of so-called stand-alone journals) and update version https://beallslist.net/standalone-journals/#update

https://beallslist.net/hijacked-journals/ (also known as cloned journals), for not (yet) included examples see: https://www.researchgate.net/post/New_very_misleading_type_of_scam_Anyone_with_recent_examples

Best regards.

PS. Do keep in mind that hijacked journals are simply criminal and there is no discussion about it. The use and meaning of the above Beall’s list are subject to quite some discussion (just search for predatory here on RG) and my personal conclusion is: use the Beall’s list for a first indication and start your own ‘judgement’ about the journal and/or publisher. See for example: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Scopus_doing_a_good_job_in_identifying_and_dealing_with_predatory_journals

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What-about-the-journal-s-listed-in-both-scopus-and-Bealls-list-Your-views-are-welcome