Rob Keller

I just realized you replied about a different journal.

It is

Explorations in Astronomy & Astrophysics journal

and not Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Dear Marco Pereira

The journal “Explorations in Astronomy & Astrophysics” https://www.wecmelive.com/journal/explorations-in-astronomy-astrophysics is indeed another story. The publisher behind this journal “(We)CME Live Inc.” is a relatively new one so not much can be found about them (yet). I see numerous red flags:

-Prominently PubMed logo is misleading since papers published by authors with a NIH grant are indexed in PubMed irrespective of the journal (so this tells you nothing about the quality of the journal)

-Their indexing info https://www.wecmelive.com/international-publisher/indexing-abstracting.html is full of meaningless and/or misleading metrics (https://beallslist.net/misleading-metrics/ ) such as DRJI and CiteFactor. These are often used by predatory journals/publishers

-Their contact info suggests US but is at best a virtual office, see also https://theregoestheneighbourhood.com/blog/?plink=not-so-pervy-(wecmelive-inc)/28418128147b92f3f9f95d0fc9d45dc9

-Looking at the overview of all their journals (almost all virtually empty) https://www.wecmelive.com/international-publisher/open-access-journals.html they all mention “CiteScore” and a value. This is fake! CiteScore is the impact factor equivalent of Scopus and only assigned to journals indexed in Scopus (which is not the case for any of their journals)

Etc. Etc.

Personally, I have seen enough and would conclude avoid this one.

Best regards.

You are knowledgeable, Rob Keller Rob Keller

Thank you for your thoughtful answer.

I will keep away from it.

I was surprised that the plain googling of the journal would tell me the opposite. When I asked ChatGPT, I was also warned.

I will keep away.