Hello all

If you are not sure of the publisher's credentials I would check before you agree to publish with them - there are many so-called predatory publishers out there. We recommend ThinkCheckSubmit http://www.thinkchecksubmit.org/ which is a website that helps you to choose trusted publishers for your research.

At Imperial College London we recommend our researchers also check the following, particularly if it is an open access publisher.

• If it publishes a journal - it has an entry in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – which provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals – inclusion has a strict criteria. Some journal websites state that the journal is in DOAJ when it is not. Often, the home page carries the DOAJ logo along with logos from other indexing services. ALWAYS check at www.doaj.org that a journal is indexed.
• Publisher’s membership of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Members of OASPA are expected to adhere to the OASPA Membership Criteria of transparency and best practice.
• Publisher’s membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Publisher’s membership of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Named editor and editorial board – recognised experts in their field who include their editorial commitment on their own research profiles. But be aware that some predatory publishers list editors on their board without their knowledge.
• Look at the editor’s profile on their university website, links to their online profiles (for example, on ResearchGate, Google Scholar or LinkedIn) for evidence that they are actual editors. Further indicators are membership of organisations such as the Council of Science Editors (CSE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

With best wishes and safe publishing!

it is possibly predatory publisher see Beall's list

https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/

https://clinicallibrarian.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers/

for more, read this articles

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/health-canada-kept-predatory-publisher-despite-warning-about-shoddy-science-from-government-expert

http://flakyj.blogspot.com/2017/05/intechopen-intech-sciyo.html

I have got the invitation to write a book from them as well. Thank you for the information.

Myself as well. They are asking for 1200 Euros to publish a chapter with them, so I am wondering the same thing.

Cherie

I just got an invitation to submit a chapter there, and came here to check. Thank you for the warning. I am not going to get involved.

They invited me to be a co-author and write a chapter for the book. Later asked 2,000 Euros for publishing the chapter.

Lidar, did you decline?

Yes, I declined publishing with them and sent the note. Still receiving emails, but ignore the messages. My recommendation is: no one respectful publisher will chase researchers in order to have their work publishing. Please, find another publisher with pre-reviewed committee. Please, check who is in the committee. And check the predatory list of publishers available online.

Cheers!

Thank you, will do!

These folks asked me, ironically, to submit a chapter on "Predatory Behaviour," since I study predator-prey interactions. Hilarious!

Too funny!

Ildar Akhmadullin you are welcome

thank you for asking this question; I was also invited to participate in writing a chapter in his book. it's obvious that it's predators

I am also invited to write a chapter. I think your comments have given me some breath now.

I must decline

I was invited too to write a chapter in HVAC systems. Thankfully I directed here.

Yes same here.

I also get such e-mail. They also write name of editor. I wonder, does she know that she is editor? Thank you all for their opinions.

Most of the times, yes. I have seen some researchers posting on social media that theyapproved their request and are recruiting experts to help them. So i think they know

Th

My junior co-workers have been targeted. The book editor was a legitimate scientist but not a reference in his research field.

In general, the editors listed in InTech webpage are actual scientists but none had h-index above 10 (in the Earth Sciences list and according to Scopus). But apparently books are indexed on the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science.

It is clear that the chapters and books are paid by the authors (according to their webpage the chapters will cost more than 690 euros).

So, I would not publish with them because there’s no added value for my research. If they are still a predatory publisher depends on the hidden fees, but that I’m not willing to find out.

Thanks on your detailed answer, Dr Ferreira

I received an invitation to participate in writing a book chapter from InTech Open Science. Their website is convincing, has a recent Nobel Laureate, and the book’s editor name. Thankfully, just before submitting my chapter I noticed something not right about the website and they are asking for 1200 Euros. So, please ignore any email from them as it is clear they are a predatory publisher.

InTechOpen was on Beall's list of predatory publishers. The website www.intechopen.com is not registered to its founders. Instead, they use a proxy company in Arizona, obscuring their identities.

http://flakyj.blogspot.ae/2017/05/intechopen-intech-sciyo.html

I – along with my co-founder, Vedran Kordic, PhD - founded IntechOpen to help provide free access to published work. I understand, and appreciate, the concerns raised on this forum. The editors and authors who have published with us have come from universities around world, and we have established relationships with leading research and funding organizations such as NASA, Wellcome Trust, European Commission and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Additionally, our authors’ works have been recognized and indexed by the Book Citation Index in the Web of Science, OpenAIRE, and IntechOpen, as a publisher is a COPE member, among others.

Before making decisions about whether to accept invitations to contribute to our open access books, I invite you to connect with me directly so that I can explain our processes, and answer any questions you may have. As scientists, we both welcome a healthy debate. If interested, I also can put you in touch with authors and editors who have published with us.

On this website you can learn all about IntechOpen publishing process and quality criteria:

https://www.intechopen.com/publish-books.html

Feel free to reach out to us directly. Thank you.

Hi Alex, why do you charge a signifcant APC? Will you be willing to publish a good quality chapter if some one is not able to pay?

Hi Anirban,

thanks for your question, which is of great importance for us, since I can see a lot of scientists are still not known with open access publishing and for that reason are surprised of publishing fees and have suspicious thoughts about the publisher as I can see in the comments here. IntechOpen is a worlds largest scientific publisher of open access books. The publishing fees are paid in order to have scientific books free of charge. Which is of importance for scientists in order to spread their research results in a fast and tremendously effective way. Till today IntechOpen books have been downloaded more than 120 million times, and thats a real power of open access publishing - dissemination of knowledge. With such a great number of readership, IntechOpen authors get much higher visibility comparing to traditional publishing and in the end much higher number of citations of their work.

You can find more about open access publishing at this link:

https://www.intechopen.com/about-open-access.html

Of course we do waive the fees, especially for authors from 3rd world countries and/or young and high quality researchers. We are aware that not all the researchers have same income and same funding availability.

Of course, the authors who do pay the publishing fees are covered by the institution on which they are working, so they are not paying the fees from their own pocket. Please ask at your institution or library of existence of such fund.

And of course I could connect you with our publishing department in order to check if there is a book topic on which you could submit your chapter. If the chapter pass the review process and gets accepted, we could waive the fees for you.

Thanks again for your question.

Kind Regards

Alex Lazinica

Hello all

If you are not sure of the publisher's credentials I would check before you agree to publish with them - there are many so-called predatory publishers out there. We recommend ThinkCheckSubmit http://www.thinkchecksubmit.org/ which is a website that helps you to choose trusted publishers for your research.

At Imperial College London we recommend our researchers also check the following, particularly if it is an open access publisher.

• If it publishes a journal - it has an entry in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – which provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals – inclusion has a strict criteria. Some journal websites state that the journal is in DOAJ when it is not. Often, the home page carries the DOAJ logo along with logos from other indexing services. ALWAYS check at www.doaj.org that a journal is indexed.
• Publisher’s membership of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Members of OASPA are expected to adhere to the OASPA Membership Criteria of transparency and best practice.
• Publisher’s membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Publisher’s membership of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices.
• Named editor and editorial board – recognised experts in their field who include their editorial commitment on their own research profiles. But be aware that some predatory publishers list editors on their board without their knowledge.
• Look at the editor’s profile on their university website, links to their online profiles (for example, on ResearchGate, Google Scholar or LinkedIn) for evidence that they are actual editors. Further indicators are membership of organisations such as the Council of Science Editors (CSE), European Association of Science Editors (EASE) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

With best wishes and safe publishing!

John,

thanks for clarifying the issues even in more details.....IntechOpen published 39 book chapters from researchers working at Imperial College London, the number of which we are proud.

You can contact me directly if you would need some kind of support/ideas/service from our, publisher side.

Alex

Alex, is IntechOpen a member of any of the publishing open access organisations listed above?

John,

of course it is, you can check it on IntechOpen website.

More than that, IntechOpen is an officially eligible publisher for all research funded by European Commission, major publisher of open access books indexed in Web of Science etc...

Alex

Hi John,

Can you kindly let us know the open access databases ( from the list provided by John) of which Intech is a member? Would be really beneficial for interested authors. Intech website has lot of content. Hence, it is difficult to locate this information.

Apologies, the above question was meant for Alex.

Hi Alex,

Can you kindly let us know the open access databases ( from the list provided by John) of which Intech is a member? Would be really beneficial for interested authors. Intech website has lot of content. Hence, it is difficult to locate this information.

Anirban

Dear Anirban,

John did not mention any open access databases, but organizations. Anyway, IntechOpen is a member of Open Archive Initiative Protocol, Creative Commons, Crossref, Association of Learned and Professional Publishers, COPE Publication Ethics, etc...

Last week we just organised seminars on open access publishing at Harvard University and MIT.

Hope it helps.

Alex

Today I have received an invitation from InTechOpen. The information available is quite useful. Thanks to all.

Thanks to the interaction on this quesion, this discussion is now among the top 10 search results on Google when searching "InTech Open" and other researchers will have visibility to see it and decide for themselves to cooperate or not with that publisher based on the opinion of their peers.

You are right Abdelrahman, this link provided good advice. Thanks to all.

Today I have got the invitation to write a chapter of a book "Moth" from them as well. Thanks to all for the information.

I also received an invitation and wanted to check how reliable is intech. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts

Hi Wilfried

I too received the mail yesterday to write on moths

I also received an email to contribute to a book on Game Theory. As is common in many predatory publishers/journals, they justified the choice based on an article I published fairly recently. My research areas do not fit very well with the Book topics, which suggests predatory publishing.

Some publishers are "shady" and contain both high quality journals and vanity press (e.g. Hindawi).

I failed to find a concise listing of the database indexing of InTech, besides the advertising that SOME of its books are indexed in ISI WEB of science.

My take on this is that: it may have some serious books; however, it undoubtedly aims for profit.

A note on indexing databases: As John commented above, there are some useful guidelines to choose the correct research outlet. However, indexing is not always a sure way. Thomson Reuters for instance, is a business like any else; JCR impact factors tell nothing about a journals quality and there is a lot of opacity regarding how a specific indexing testifies for the journal/editor's quality. Conspiracy theories aside, one can never be completely safe. When in dout, avoid it, lest it damages your scientific reputation. There are a lot of excellent books/journals out there (including open access).

Thanks to all of you for those precious explanation. I am almost to accept the invitation from InTechOpen Publiser to contribute a chapter as shown below: (This is their third messages although I refused them kindly before)

• Dear Dr. Özeno?lu, I just wanted to check in with you regarding the book project on "Body-mass Index" edited by Dr. Ayse Emel Onal: http://www.intechopen.com/welcome/bb520e914b9b3d726b9b9f9d047011ce/[email protected] If there is anything I can help with, like answer any questions, or provide some additional information, please let me know. I hope to hear from you soon,  Martina Usljebrka, from InTechOpen  Publishing Process Manager  ____________________________________ InTech - open science | open minds Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.intechopen.com/ Phone: +385 (51) 770 447 Fax: +385 51 686166 Janeza Trdine 9 51000 Rijeka, Croatia --

Thanks to all of you for your valuable information about this publisher.

Considering all the answers, I decided to decline to publish in the book "Control Engineering" of InTechOpen mainly because there are concerns about the reputation of the Publisher and also because I do not have the funds to pay such fees.

Thanks Abdelrahman for starting this debate about InTechOpen.

Thanks a lot for sharing all these information. Since my team had a found to pay the fee, we published a chapter in InTech. I asked them for the entire book (print version) and they ask me for more money!! –

I declined and I'm asking: it is necessary to ask for so much money just for to put an amount of chapters online??

thank you all for the enriching debate. Yesterday I received the same mail where based on an article I published last year they want me to write a chapter in a book called bovine science. I asked them some questions and I will wait for an answer. The questions were:

Should I pay to post?

Can more authors be included in the proposal?

Should the published article be out of circulation to be included in the book on bovine science?

I would like to know all the content they have estimated for the book.

Will the book be published online or also in physics?

Will the book be sold? Will I have any economic compensation?

the patrimonial rights of the book of who they are?

I will wait for the answer and then publish it here

The same, from different publishers are happening to me almost every day.

I look for some of their authors in Web of Science and results are predictable. This could be important. Being self-critical and using WoS (or other indexing source) to check other coauthors and editors should be suficient to make a decision: to pay and publish or not.

The problem is that in some smaller and relatively isolated scientific communities colleagues are not aware of discussion started here on ReserchGate. Consequently in some universities such publications are considered as valuable scientific contribution and accepted for scientific promotion of authors. Of course this could further contribute to isolation of such scientific communities. On the other hand I know some young researchers who published their really good results in such publications. This is very sad. It is better not to publish than to publish in questionable source. However in "publish or perish" climate some colleagues happily accept such invitations. Obviously this should be stopped but the question is how.

Hi,

I just received their invitation. but when I checked the profile of the editor of the book chapter, it seems very far from the topic. So I declined;)

Thanks for saving my days. I got acceptance from them and they are asking to write 14-20 page chapter. last and important thing is "Money". It's pity that they are using your precious research work, charging money and of course wasting time.. :(

I so agree.

Dear All,

my experience, for what it's worth, is that I published a book chapter with IntechOpen at the end of last year (please see link below).

https://www.intechopen.com/books/cobalt/a-review-of-the-radionuclide-cobalt-60-as-a-fine-sediment-tracer

A standard article (length between 14-20 pages long) cost 840 Euros. My chapter was longer than that, through my own fault, so it cost me slightly more, but they were very professional and indeed, after the publication process, I now have 2 hard copies of said book (a pretty esoteric book about about Cobalt, but I suppose many academic subjects are pretty esoteric). I suppose whether you take them up on their invite depends whether you can afford the publications costs at the time, whether you think the exposure in terms of potential citations, or being seen to be contributing to a book, are worth it.

As a fairly junior academic with mid-teen full length research articles to my name, I thought at my career stage, that the prestige of a being sole author of a book chapter (if there is any?) would do my CV no harm. In other words, I'm happy with what I received - but I do appreciate that authors could be seen as 'buying' a publication.

Anyway, these are my experiences. I hope they're of some help to people. Regards, Phil.

Predatory

Dear Dr. Lackovi?, This is a friendly reminder that the registration deadline for contributing to “Botulinum Toxin,” an Open Access book edited by Dr. Nikolay Serdev is 20 Mar, 2018. Please visit the book project page http://www.intechopen.com/welcome/2a6791462a0bbc32c6da3218dcf5ac28/[email protected] to register your interest. If it is not of interest do please let us know so that we can update our records and only contact you for relevant opportunities

I published a chapter book in 2017 and edited a book in 2018. Just now I accepted their invitation for editing one more book.

Hi Abdelrahman Ibrahim Abushouk, thank you for the discussion. It is very useful for me since I also got their invitation.

Hello fellow scientists,

Alex here – a co-founder of IntechOpen. Please see my previous comments. Also, I've noticed there are many questions which I think are about the general modus operandi in the Open Access publishing environment, not just related to IntechOpen. Let me try to answer that -- the Open Access movement started about 15 years ago under the name of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. A quick summary – the scientific researchers realized that the traditional publishing model was outdated and created a new business model which allows for the research that is published to be available to everyone whether they have money to pay for the articles they need or not. The Initiative, comprised of scientific community leaders across the globe, has developed recommendations for Open Access publishing process (this is a direct quote from:  http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org)  “which has worked for the past decade to provide the public with unrestricted, free access to scholarly research — much of which is publicly funded. Making the research publicly available to everyone — free of charge and without most copyright and licensing restrictions — will accelerate scientific research efforts and allow authors to reach a larger number of readers.”

In my opinion, the “much of which is publicly funded” is a very important statement – it means that universities, institutes and government agencies sponsoring research, realize that the science will be spread the fastest by enabling access to everyone around the globe to published research. They also realize that a publishing process takes an investment, so they are now dedicating a portion of their funds that were traditionally spent on purchasing journals to creating Open Access funds or some call it “Scholarly Communications” funds to support their own researchers. Meaning they typically dedicate an amount per year per researcher they will pay on behalf of their scientist to cover the publishing fee. Ultimately this means you as an author do not pay the publishing fee – either the institution pays it directly to a publisher, or they would reimburse you. That part depends on the institution. The publishing fees vary by a publisher and also vary by the type of published work, whether an article or a larger work, such as a book chapter.

Hope this is helpful. I do invite you to respond to me.

Thank you, Alex

Dear Dr Alex

Thanks for your reply. However, i believe most researchers here know how open access publishing works. I think we can summarize their concerns into two main points:

- First, the basis of your invitations. Sometimes you choose one article an author published as a reason to invite him/her to write a chapter for you. Publishing one or few articles on a topic does not make people experts in it.

- Second, the high price of your publication, compared to other open access publishers.

There are other points as well. But as for my understanding, these two were mentioned repeatedly.

Kind Regards

Predatory

Dr. Abushouk, fair questions:

• University of Cambridge: “The average Open Access article processing charge the Open Access Service (internal dept) pays is ~£2100. This figure is an average across the entire University, although the bias is towards science and engineering journals.”  https://osc.cam.ac.uk/open-access/open-access-policies/paying-open-access/how-much-do-publishers-charge-open-access

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5376386/
• https://oa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/B13_Louise_Page.pdf

I hope this clarifies some of your questions, Alex

Thanks for the information

Dear Alex Lazinica ,

I have coauthored a book chapter for the book entitled "Rice" from Intech Open. The book chapter has been accepted. But unfortunately we cannot afford to pay any fees. Can you kindly provide us a complete waiver?

Hi,

I also received several invitations to publish a chapter. The last one this morning. I ignored them all. Thanks for all the information provided in this discussion..

Dear Anitha,

Thank you for submitting your chapter to the IntechOpen book and congratulations on successfully making it through the review process. Regarding the waiver request, please contact the IntechOpen representative that was assigned to your chapter/book. As you can imagine, with more than 100,000 authors working with IntechOpen, in my role, I am not involved in daily communication with authors. In a situation like yours, we have a standard procedure in place for applying for waivers. Also, did you get a chance to look into potential funders for your work? Thank you, Alex

Dear Alex Lazinica,

Thank you for responding to my message. We tried various sources to see if any funding were possible but have hit a roadblock. Currently we are facing a huge financial crunch. We requested for complete waiver to the concerned publishing process manager. She has offered us a discount for the APC, and also not pay the extra page charges. She has offered us to make the payment in 2 installments if necessary. But unfortunately we cannot afford to make any payment though we do not belong to the low income countries listed on your web page. Can you kindly provide us a complete waiver?

Dear Anitha, I understand. Still, I am simply not involved. Please work with the PPM, and ask them to escalate to the director of publishing. I will not be answering these types of messages in the future.

Dear Alex Lazinica,

Thank you for responding to my message.

I just received an invite also to write a chapter, this discussion has been really informative, and I've now decided to decline this invitation, thanks to everybody’s contributions.

Thanks for all comments and suggestions... Today I received an invitation to participate in writing a chapter in a book related do Industry 4.0, but it seemed very suspicious...

I’m definitely not interested in paying ~1.000 euros for a publication in a publisher of doubtful origin!

After reading this very long thread, I found there are still a few things to say, but first let me point out two facts, because I have a chapter in one InTechOpen book and this may lead to some CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

(A) after publishing the chapter the editorial sent the printed book as promised and the material in on-line as promised.

(B) The book has had low-impact for it is know to very few people in the field, its impact comes from a few self-citations.

Given that, it must be said:

1) The book was peer-reviewed, but that probably has to do with the book's editor, more than the editorial itself. Editors, I believe (and Alex Lazinica may clarify this) are also invited by the editorial, and they choose who should be invited to contribute. I cannot qualify the level and stringency of the peer-review process, since I have only myself as sample... very limited and very biased sampling, even for social sciences.

2) The cost was not hidden, not the fact that they are not indexed in Scopus, and Thomson-Reuters SCI (currently Clarivate-Analytics), PubMed or so.

3) The editorial has no registry in DOJA, because it does not publish journals. It does have legal ISSN for each book, as it should.

**Funny enough searching the DOJA site, I found a paper discussing Open Access, including InTechOpen at the "Bosnian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences ( DOI: 10.17305/bjbms.2013.2343 ).

4) InTech had two sites, one is "InTechOpen" at Rijeka, Croatia and the other was a dodgy website hidden behind a proxy server at Arizona, under the name InTech. Beal's list made reference to the second. I published with the one at Rijeka.

5) The book is and has been on-line for download ever since.

Did they lied to me? NO.

Will I do it again? Unlikely (its expensive).

Having said all that, my opinion is:

-The editorial is a legitimate business, they sell a product as advertised, they try to make the site and product look appealing (as most other commercial companies do).

-You should be sceptical and examine their publicity under a critical lens, just as when you buy a new drink.

-Its product is far too expensive, as it has limited recognition by the scientific community, but some people like expensive stuff, and can show it as productivity at their local "science labour evaluation bodies".

-If you decide to buy them a chapter, do not expect more than what they have to offer: A printed book and its on-line version in open-access.

Best wishes,

Rogelio

I also received an invitation to write a chapter. Thank you for the information!

Your wellcome

I did some research and found some additional information you may want to read, but put it in a similar, older thread:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_You_think_about_intechopencom#view=5ad10fcb404854853b076076

Best wishes

Rogelio

I was also asked repeatedly to write a chapter in a book not very related to my area of expertise, except that i published just one article and a case report on a similar topic. I dont consider myself qualified enough to write on that particular topic or book, so its another proof that they are on the hunt for unsuspecting researchers whom are eager to publish regardless of the quality that they will be offering just to make money.

regards

I was invited to contribute a chapter too yesterday (April 16, 2018). The invite goes thus;

" Dear Dr. Nwokoye,

Due to your involvement in the field, and the research you published in your paper, "The topicality of agent-based modeling/multi agent systems in human computer interaction research: An African perspective," InTechOpen invites you to extend your work and offer a more comprehensive overview of your studies. Contribute a chapter to “Multi-Agent Systems - Control Spectrum,” an upcoming Open Access book edited by Dr. Vladimir Shikhin. "

From the invite, I will say InTech didn't entirely regard me as an expert in my field yet. They acknowledged the fact that I may love to extend my research, perhaps because the said paper was a review article that elicited open directions.

All the same, I am a researcher form a third world country (Nigeria); if they (InTech) would grant me full waiver, I will be glad to contribute.

I really learnt a lot from this thread.

They invited me to be an author and write a chapter for the book. Later asked 2,000 Euros for publishing the chapter. I published the article but I paid less.

Dear Gabriela,

Your comment gives strength to the view of InTech as predatory.

According to the Corporate Finance Institute, the power of Bargaining as buyer (your chances of negotiating a better deal) depends on the following:

Number of buyers relative to that of suppliers

Switching costs of the buyer

Buyer/seller ability to backward integrate

Volume of trade

Substitute or similar product/services availability from other suppliers

The buyer purchases the majority of the seller’s sales

How differentiated (unique) is the product

In the case of science communication, the most important factor is the recognition/visibility of the final product (how much your colleagues will value a contribution in a particular medium). Your Bargaining power as consumer is high because their product has low recognition for the price they are asking, and because the costs of Open Access is low, so switching costs are low for both buyer and seller. That is to say, you can find better media (substitutes) to communicate your ideas and you do not loose money (only effort, that you can recover when publishing somewhere else).

Best wishes

Rogelio

Dear Rogelio,

I apologize for my unfortunate comment, I did not want to strengthen InTech's vision as predatory.

I totally agree with what you explained: Scientific communication, the most important factor is the recognition and visibility of the final product. It's true that I can find better ways to communicate your ideas and not lose money. But it is also very true that time is lost.

In my particular case, publishing with you was very good, but having no money available, since our grants are not paid in time and form, and are in Argentine pesos, we are unable to pay that amount of money in dollars.

Thank you very much for your comment

GBA

Dear Gabriela,

I have no connection to InTech, and I am nor in favour, neither against - I merely stated the Bargaining factors and interpreted the facts.

In addition, you have all the rights to exploit the media you consider convenient to your needs, and negotiate the best possible price.

I hope your chapter reaches the intended audience with success, and you make the most out of your investment!

I also hope my comments in this thread gave you more insight into the industry you use to publish your research and ideas, so yo are better informed for your future choices.

Best wishes,

Rogelio

Someone with 7 papers in RG is in no way a "Fellow scientist", but seems to be a publiphysher instead. These journals are a way for mediocre scientists to still get "publications" by paying for them. Vanity publishing.

I served as an editor of https://www.intechopen.com/books/applications-from-engineering-with-matlab-concepts myself. Scientifically, I have few related papers of matlab implementations published in applied mathematics journals. One of them has even a high number of reads here (around 5000 at the moment) and reasonable number of citations from people I do not know personally. My h factor is 8. INTECH asked me to become an editor and I do not regret it. As as editor, differently to standard and specialized volumes (Springer, Elsevier) you have to work with various levels of submissions. Some people feel, if then already pay for the publication, it should be easily published. So the final outcome of your book very much depends how strict you are. The good think about open access publications is its online availability and consequently a very high rate of downloads, not necesarry meaning a high rate of citations as well. If I were to write of write a chapter myself (and pay for it), I would do it with very deep results but more with survey type articles to address many readers online. The published should then make sure chapters become a part of citation indexing services.

I always advise to go through the SENSE list of recognized publishers:-

http://www.sense.nl/gfx_content/documents/ABCDE-indeling%20Scientific%20Publishers%20SENSE_approved_May_2009.pdf

Just check it from above link PDF file and take decision

I just received the same email asking me to write a book chapter. They cited some of my published works, but this page has informed me what to do. Yes, decline the invitation.

Submitted abstract then took a double take and requested to withdraw but they were quite persistent.

Convince me that if I google my name and the book chapter appears on the first search page, then I may consider the 1400gbp

As I have mentioned in a previous contribution to the thread, InTech relies on the book editor to do a good Job. When they were less visible (had less books) they had to build a reputation to stay in the business, and most likely took the job of "Editor Selection" seriously. I am sure Jan Valdman is a careful scientist and took his tasks with dedication and sense of ethics. But as the time has passed, the editorial policies seemed to have moved away from this initial trend and they have besomed aggressive and careless, as we can guess in Chau Hung Lee and Charles Ikerionwu answers.

Thanks to Kusal K. Das for sharing the SENSE list. InTech is not in it.

In all goob/bad discrimination jobs there are always to options (at least):

1) One is to pick up BAD and warn everyone. Errors will harm someone. This is BEAL's list, and may publishers expressed concerns (with or without ground, but were aggressively after Jeffrey).

2) On the other hand, one can list the GOOD where errors may exclude some deserving actors. This is the sense list, but also the Clarivate system. Some publishers will have a hard time fighting to get included, but those sticking to ethics in science and with persistent work will eventually make their way in.

Best wishes

Rogelio

I got the same mail regarding submission of book chapter. I thank to you all for this information. Really Research Gate provide us the best platform for research related guidelines.

I also received recently an email to contribute to a book on "Photodetectors" . They are asking for 1600 Euros. First, i do not have the funds to pay such fees, so i will decline to publish with them. Additionnally, it seems from the above discussions that they are fake publishers.

Many thanks for sharing your experiences and for your valuable advices.

Hi all, thanks a lot for a discussion. I've received the invitation recently. I am currently considering this question. On one hand, as a young researcher, this can be a nice opportunity to publish the work, that hasn't been published anywhere else except for thesis and can't be published as a stand alone paper. But on the other hand, this is very expensive and I am not that sure about the book quality. I will follow the advice above and look into the editor's profile and see who the other contributing authors are.

I have published a number of chapters with IntechOpen, mainly working with my PhD students and postdocs. I find them a useful resource; because it gives my students the practice to write chapters and the information is widely shared. I agree the fees are high but I am not sure how else they could do it; some journals charge up to $200 per page and no one is able to access the material after publication. I still publish with regular journals but I think IntechOpen is doing a good job as far as open book publication is concerned. If anyone cannot afford the fees, stay off but I would certainly not classify them as predatory or worthless. I have turned down some of their invitations when I do not have funds; the book title does not interest me, or I have no time.

Kindly stay away from them.

Predatory

I have been invited as well but have not accepted

Thanks for all of the information. I ,too, have received an invitation. However, too many good outlets for research, thus I am declining.

I was in the same situation, and after the information provided by you, through this forum, I decided not to accept. Thank you.

I have read most of the comments (more or less) and it seems people have different opinions. I am not convinced at all by the comments made by Alex regarding the business model. It seems to me it is more a pump to collect money from scholars than a legitimate publisher.

They claim to have 100,000 authors; if each pay on average 1,000 dollars, that leads to an interesting turnover. Since most books are only published on-line, the printing and distribution budget to "publish" these "books" must be very low. The editorial fees, proofreading, and so on, I don't know; they may be significant, but not up to 1,000 dollars a piece.

Alex claims their fees are not higher than most open access journals. Perhaps, but that does not tell anything about the predatory nature of the publisher.

To end this post, I should say that I have been contacted by InTech for a book chapter (and other similar publishers earlier on) and I just ignored it (them). At present, I still prefer to rely on reputable publishers which do not request me to pay any money (like Taylors and Francis; Palgrave, or University Presses).

To complete my previous answer, I think that if the profit margin is too high, then I think the behaviour may be termed "predatory", even if they deliver that they promise. This leaves open the definition of the "legitimate profit margin", but it is easy to understand if the purpose of the company is to help researchers dispatch their research, or to make profit? If we add that a publisher like InTech is not on the list of academic publishers in most universities (for example, we have a list of book publisher with a ranking at the HK Polytechnic; Cambridge U Press, Routledge or Palgrave are ranked A+, for example), then the incentive to publish there must be very low -- unless you are a really young researcher -- since it would "count" for nothing in your assessment (or in your department assessment). I don't support at all this way to assess departments and researchers (impact factors and so on), but it is a reality and we need to take it into account.

I too have (recently) been invited to contribute a chapter. I was tempted to consider it since I have not yet had anything published in the U.S.A. I have had work published for almost 25 years, and until this, have never been asked to pay. And the cost would all fall to me - I can't believe I nearly fell for this!

@Maulfry. It is always better to either publish in a journal with an impact factor or in a collective book from a reputable publisher. If you publish there, not only you pay, but your department won't probably count it as a "legitimate" publication. So, you an consider, like someone said previously, that you lose nothing and you still have a publication, but you still lose the possibility to publish your paper in a more valuable venue. I have nothing against this publisher in particular, but since there are so many journals, I don't see the advantage -- besides that it is quicker.

After careful consideration, I've decided to decline their proposal for the book's chapter. The main reason is the quality of the books previously published by this specific editor and the other author list. It appears that at this stage the proposed book wouldn't be coherent at all. So I've decided that there is no point in doing so. And it is better to just give reference to my thesis which is openly published free of charge.