In general, I find the situation of the journal system very skewed and confusing. You are a hardworking researcher, you work for years and finally you are allowed by the great excellence of the journal to give your copyright of your work FOR FREE forever and receive nothing than some reputation (but sometimes not even this since in Academia, publishing success does not automatically translate into success with regard to salaries, grants, positions or so. Open Access Journals are even worse, since you need to pay. In may opinion the whole system (not only open access) should be abolished and restarted. Most of the work published in journals is funded by public money (from public universities) so I regard it as unethical that journals make so much money with the work they haven't done or financed.

What about a system were authors are rewarded for their job by journal itsself and retain their copyright. Also Reviewers should get money for reviewing and should be rewarded for good reviews and punished for bad ones.

Thanks Dean. I hope others will take notice as well. Regards, Hans

I thought that RG would be a good place to alert potential prey to the many predators that are around, so they do not waste their research funds on these corrupt publishers, of which there are obviously many.

Regards,

Hans

Dr Hans, this is very interesting and important aspect. most of the third word countries that have a large gab in scientific knowledge (mostly developing objectives and hypothesis of their work) find these kind of publishes their saver. they pay to publish their weak research. i myself was a part of a discussion to influence researchers in different institutions to try to publish in journals that have Impact Factor. most of the attendance, which are full professors, were unable to do so because their scientific education level is not high enough to meet the requirements of these journals. on the other hand, other professors says that in their carrier they only need certain number of papers to get promotions and to get promoted faster they like to publish is open access journals because they are generally fast in publishing and they accept anything.

You are absolutely right, Sama, that these journals publish anything, as long as you pay. But what is the point of publishing rubbish? As scientists, our role is to develop new knowledge, and share this with our peers. Contributing to new knowledge furthers science as well as your career. Producing garbage published by predatory open access journals does nothing for science and should get you nowhere in your career. It is about quality, not quantity.

when science become part of business you will find lots of fake scientist who does not care about anything except gaining money or false reputation. just like everything in the world. best regards

Sad but true. My aim is to alert colleagues about these fraudulent publishers, so they stop sending their work there. Then means, only fraudulent scientists end up publishing their work there, and decent scientists will ignore and boycott those predatory journals.

I believe that the rights of Sama and you Hans. But the warning must be given alternative. However, what to say, when recognized database SCOPUS also take money to get acquainted with publications. And what with the difference in the amount of fees. At the same time necessary to consider the time factor when publishing an article, when a solid magazine may consider your work for a long time. In general, you are right dear Hans. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is my opinion.

Dear Hans, I read a question at RG given by a Spanish professor yesterday.

He asked "Why H- index have any practical value?" I think, some relation can be assumed betwen his and your question. Since many of institutes have assessment practice to measure their researchers' quality with H-index being a simple ratio calculated on the base of a given publication and its number of citation, I guess, authors endeavor to collect a large number of publication to have chance for citation.

Although, everybody knows authors are strongly charged by these online journals while they generally lie about their scientific parameters e.g. IF, nevertheless the number of authors of predator journals is increasing permanently.

If there is an integrated evaluation system especially for scientists of different disciplines these types of questions would never came up.

Dear All,

The answer is simple: authors want publish their ideas the most quickly for the possibly widest audience in order to get the most citations and as Ágnes mentioned to have the highest H-index. “Predatory” OA journals are the best way for it.

Also business considerations play a role from point of view of the editors but this means by the way that some scientists can afford this publication.

I wish to each of us to be able to afford the fees of OA journals!

Good answer András. I read a blog Jeffrey Beall. Not so clearly there, especially his answers to questions. Although in general common sense in such an evaluation is.

Dear Hans, I cannot thank you enough for your showing to us that fastastic link about predaory publishers.

In my University we have a tiny list of such publishers and all us over here are adviced not to publish there. I may dare to share with my coleagues the link you offer to us. Marvellous.

Besides, I agree, of course, wit the spirit of the answers provided so far.

I think desire for earning reputation and recognition is natural to humans. Being humans , all authors want to see their work published. But some authors are in too hurry and therefore often ignore the basic ethics. On the other hand, some publishers also fall in the same above mentioned category. 

Dear all,

I am pleased that my original questions led to a wealth of responses, all of which appear to show sympathy with the point I raised.  Indeed, we wish to see our results published and cited, but papers in predatory open access journals that are not worth citing don't do much good for either your citations or your reputation.  I would never consider citing those, not even to point out they were wrong.  Those papers and journals are best ignored.

Thanks to all who contributed to this discussion and help spear the information to help stop the terrible sprea of these fraudulent activities.

Regards,

Hans 

Dear  Professor Hans, Thank you for your question which deals with a type of dishonesty that I previously openned a dialogue about a part of it. Please see below:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_academic_research_dishonesty_be_prevented_and_what_punishment_do_you_suggest_for_the_perpetrators?

Dear Professor Hans,

I am grateful for you for the link you provided (Ottawacitizen...). I read part of it & saved it as doc. file for more thorough reading. The part I read, revealed a widespread corruption that must be curbed & stopped.

Dear Nizar,

I appreciate your support, and we should extend our appreciation to Jeffrey Beall, who did the groundwork.  It is gratifying to see the supportive responses in this thread, which hopefully help to curb the activities of those scoundrels.

Regards,

Hans 

@ Agnes:

Your H-index gives the number of your papers that got cited H times.  It is fair to assume that your best papers attract most citations, at least on average and admitting there are exceptions.  Publishing more low-quality papers, rather than less high-quality ones, will do little to increase your H-index, and hence publishing garbage in predatory journals won't do you any good, other than relieving you of excess research funds.  

@Others:

If I haven't responded to all of you, this is not because I don't appreciate what you have written, but because I just can't keep up with this overwhelming response, which I find very gratifying.

That's cheap.  Many charge well over $1,000.  Their costs are minimal, as they skip the review process.  I hope we're not giving anybody any ideas here.  :-)

Have a look on this thread:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_high_publication_fees2

Dear Hans, I completely agree with you.

Let me please put it in a more roughly way. Those predatory journals and publicshing houses are worthy only only for the "outsiders" or the "climbers". But for real "insiders" or "conoisseurs" they are void of any value.

That is, for those of us who know and identify some of those journals and publishing companies the papers and books published there are totaly worthless. 

I agree with both Jose and Carlos.

It's the PREDATORY aspect I seek to expose.   These PREDATORY journals have not come into existence when open access journals started.  The Indian Journal of Plant Physiology was around before the internet took off.  There is nothing wrong with OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS per se.  

@Hans, I agree fully with your last remark. Open Access is the way between hiding your paper in your drawer and publishing it in closed journals that hide your paper behind high fees (per paper or per volume), thereby urging your institution to buy your paper that has already been funded publicly.

Publishing in Open Access journals (of which more than 60% are free to authors and readers, see http://doaj.org) is an important way to narrow the academic  information gap between the developed and the developing world. We just have to be careful about where to publish and refrain from the predators and low-quality publishers.

@Michael

I have made just about ALL my papers available here on RG, so as to make that information gap as narrow as possible.  Like you, I believe that approach is better than publishing in predatory journals.

@Orkid

Your sympathy and support is valued greatly.

I can only do what is within my span of control, Orkid.  :-)

While agreeing by what has been posted earlier in this thread, I feel that often people are in a hurry to publish and fall in trap of such journals. Open Access Journals are a very good thing to happen in academic world, but unfortunately, there are many publishers who are only after making money from the aspiring authors. They have entered the arena and marketing themselves aggressively making it difficult for the authors to judge their reputation and also ensuring ethical behaviour from them.

Almost every day I receive mails from some or the other Open Access journal asking me to publish, and when I read the instructions for the authors, the publishing fee is required ranging from 300-1500 USD I do not mind charging some token processing fee but depending solely on money received from authors to run the journal is unethical and leads to scam. This practice must stop and ratings should be introduced for Open Access Journal too so that authors may take a learned decision.  

@ Dr Singh:

Authors should, indeed, be very critical where they publish their work.  Many journals will publish the good work of any author without any charges.  It's impact of our research findings we should be after, rather than publish as many papers as we can manage.

The only ratings we have at the moment is Impact Factors.  If used judicioulsy, they are valuable.  Impact Factors should be ued only to compare journals within a certain discipline, and not between different disciplines.  

Sometimes, we did not know the predator publisher.

@Khushna:

That is exactly why I started this thread, so now everyone who cares can check.

Regards,

Hans

Living in a developing country, I can see the value of open access publications. Looking through the window of an ever deteriorating exchange rate, paying for articles from heavyweight journals quicly becomes a pricy affair.

The reason I look at open access publications are the same as why I don't publish there ... COST !. e.g Often the paid Journals are just too expensive for a private individual while, on the other hand, it is prohibitively expensive to publish in these "predatory" open access journals.

I find that this forum (researchgate) overcomes the financial constraints somewhat, because I can legally ask anyone to send me a copy of an interresting paper, which may or may not be useful as a reference in my research.

My overall take on the matter is that, if there is a drive for the developing world to develop, research materials should be much more accessable.

The developing world can produce really good quality research, driven by real need for innovation, which can be greatly accellerated with better access to quality research. Often research is steered by Corporates and their direct short term financial gain (See "Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain" by George Monbiot)

That being said, there are some great open access journals as well, but one has to be careful. Here is a couple:

http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/view/index.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journals/all/open-access

http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-journals

etc.. Use Google + Common Sense.

@David:

Just about ALL the journals I publish in do NOT charge for my publications; I should add that I only want to publish in high-impact journals.  Therefore, there is absolutely NO reason to go to any open access journals to save money.  Occasionally, I pay for open acces, but I would NEVER pay for predatory open access journals.

I don't fully agree with Sama that qualifiaction has much off an influence whether one can publish in a heavyweigt journal or not. Some Journals nowadays intentinally do not cite the authors, on the reviewer's copy, in order to get objective feedback.   It may have a little bit of influence, but the main aspect is the content. This includes whether the research is new, relevant, well written, gramatically sound, speaks to the audiience of the journal etc. (Yes, one can submit a good paper to the wrong Journal, speaking from first hand experience)    One should also be careful not to publish something just for the sake of publishing, because a bad reputation in the research world is nearly impossible to shake.   The best way to learn the trade is to publish something, scrutinize the results from the reviewers, learn from it and apply it in your next paper. This is cumbersome, but within a year or so (4 attempts), one can develop the skill and know how to get into a big journal, regardless of qualification.

Topic of discussion is very important. I welcome and encourage it.

But her decision is ambiguous

eg

according to Jeffrey Beall journal La Pensée is predatory.

according to RG La Pensée - TOP JOURNALS.

Who is right. Whom to believe.

Next. If a journal La Pensée - predatory magazine and its placement in the RG can cast a shadow of mistrust on all the rest, and RG is not credible (according to the logic of placing an article in the journal predatory).

Next. Many good magazines have a option - services to authors. Is not it a hidden option to pay for the magazine. And there are a lot of question.

In the era of publish or perish science, combine this with the stress of getting grants to maintain the employment status. Also whether open access or the regular journal the author has to pay the publication charges. The review process for the articles have changed from a courteous process to outright dismal make it or breakit approach. I have seen several papers filled with mistakes and omissions getting published in the regular journals as well.

I think that the process of obtaining a grant is a separate topic of discussion.

@Sharad:

This is not correct, as I pointed out before,  Most journals do NOT charge for publications.  All they ask for is quality. 

Dear Hans,  Hopefully there is no misunderstanding between us.

Knowing that, open access journals and predators are not the same but many of them are shams.Garbage can be published by both of them. In this case, you are absolutely right to be against the predators.

Previously,  I just wanted to clarify that different institutes have different practice of evaluation for their researchers and they prefer the H-index. With this arrangement, institutes themselves force their employees to publish whatever they can and probably this is the reason of publicity of predator journals.

Ágnes

Can we agree on the idea of publishing in OA journals that maintain a high standard of review process without charging authors AND readers as a good (or the best) way of publishing work funded by the public?

As you know, most of open access journals publish the articles with Charge and the review and acceptance process in that journals is short. Also most of students for him or her conditions prefer to publish the articles in open access journals.

Dear Agnes,

I think I understood you correctly in the first place a,d I don't think we were really disagreeing.  Youre H index will grow by publishing papers that get cited, and this is more likely if these papers are of high quality.  Likewise, if you publish rubbish in predatory journals, it is unlikely to attract many citations, and hence won;t increase your H index.

Regards,

Hans 

@ Michael:  

I agree on the idea of publishing in OA journals that maintain a high standard of review process (irrespective of their charges) AND on the idea that readers who cite publications are a good way of determining the quality of the publications.  

Someone will have to pay the costs for publishing work funded by the public, as there is no such thing as a free lunch in this universe. I want my publications to be available to anyone who wishes to read them, irrespecive of their financial position.  For me, that is the reason to upload them all on RG.  However, I am only an email away from whowever want a PDF, and will invariably make available what I can to whoever contacts me.  For me, that is just as good as "open access", but it ensures quality control through a rigorous peer-review process, which is lacking with predatory journals. 

@Yousef:

I can see why you want your work to get published quickly and with open access.  However, you can achieve all this without compromising quality and I urge you to invariably target journals with a rigorous peer-review process, as it will enhance the quality of your published work.  It is quality we should ain for, and not quantity or speed.

I don't think Yousef is advocating for low standard publishing but he is wrong anyway when he says that most OA journals charge authors. They do not. Please, have a look at http://doaj.org (a Website dedicated to collect information on OA journals. You'll see that more than 60% of OA journals don't charge.

That website has a good list of OA journals, but not all of these are free.  I can't quite work out which ones are and don't know where you get your ">60%" from.

To be honest, I can't see how it could be free,  Someone must foot the bill, even if it is not the authors.  

Go to doaj.org, click SEARCH and at left on JOURNALS (not articles), you get the overall sum of 9,886 journals. Then you click on PUBLICATION_CHARGES? and you see 6,465 journals with no charge.

Regarding the cost, Hans, have a read on this thread

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_does_it_cost_to_run_a_scientific_journal?

Thanks Jose and Michael.  

Plenty of examples of "hidden costs", e.g., in Spain.  I have no issue with "hidden costs" or being charged, as long as quality is guaranteed; predatory journals have no interest in quality.  That's what made me start this thread, and given the number of people following this discussion and/or upvoting qustions here, it fortunately is having some success.

What I meant is that it may be free for me to publish in your Spanish journals, but as you say the Spanish taxpayer takes care of the bill (i.e. for me the costs are hidden, but that is not to say there are none).

It's not only predatories that are to blame but also generally respected publishers, as can be seen on this thread

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_your_thoughts_on_nonsense_writing_Publishers_withdraw_more_than_120_gibberish_papers2?_tpcectx=profile_questions

@Jose:

I do NOT insist.  In fact, I made reference to the Indian Journal of Plant Physiology.  I am not sure it still exists, because the "editor in chief" ended up in jail because of forging postage stamps.  The journal was around well before online open access journals came into existence.

I am not sure who you thought was/is stubborn.  The thread I started targets shoddy practices, which are very common with predatory open access journals.  If I am considered stubborn by bringing this to the attention of RG colleagues, so be it.

Dear friends, there is, it apperas, unanimity on the subject. I just woud like to make some more emphasis, additionaly, on those predatory publishing houses - for books! This is a most sensitive issue, too.

Books usually are not peer-reviewed, I agree, Carlos. They almost never got retracted by the publisher; I recollect such case last year, though, by a renowned German publishing company (Beck Verlag) about medieval ships if I remember right. The authors had copied entire pages from the Wikipedia without references. 

Retraction Watch calls for a Transparency Index for journals, see link below. What do you think about that?

http://retractionwatch.com/transparencyindex/

Thanks for sharing that, Michael.

Asmat Ali captures the whole issue elegantly in a nut shell!

It is a paradox that in the face of uncertainty with respect to Science2.0 (Open Science), so many objective researchers settle for a quick decision, be it choice of journal for the sake of ease, or forming an opinion on Open Science before examining the bulk of the evidence (as we do daily in our own research).

Ultimately, we risk losing out on an opportunity as a community, and personally with respect to optimising our impact.

Dear Michael Brückner,

Thank you very much for the link which you provided. It shows samples of corruption, fraud, and dishonesty . When "fake" scientists are produced, all mankind will suffer so this "thriving" business ought to be exposed.

Ignorance, the anxiety of the author need not wait six months for a simple YES or NO to contribute to this scenario.

The fact that newspapers are more concerned with the formatting of the text and the beautiful English than with the content of research and discovery stimulates mainly beginners to try other avenues. We should spend more time on research that was in the making of a beautiful text.

Who's Afraid of Peer Review? (John Bohannon)

A spoof paper concocted by Science reveals little or no scrutiny at many open-access journals.

On 4 July, good news arrived in the inbox of Ocorrafoo Cobange, a biologist at the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara. It was the official letter of acceptance for a paper he had submitted 2 months earlier to the Journal of Natural Pharmaceuticals, describing the anticancer properties of a chemical that Cobange had extracted from a lichen. ...

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

I wonder whether the overall discussion can be al ittle more balanced out by showcasing examples where Open Science does work, and does feed well into the "publish or perish" needs?

Here are two threads where we might want to motivate postdocs with what works in Open Science:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_alternative_resources_can_help_a_postdoc_while_trying_to_obtain_funds_publications_and_maintain_competitiveness?_tpcectx=qa_overview&_trid=53c0063cd685cc31198b466a_2

and

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_you_use_OpenScience_to_feed_the_Publish_or_Perish_needs_for_measurable_IMPACT?_tpcectx=qa_overview&_trid=53c006eecf57d7297a8b47b0_1

Dear Ivo,

I am by no means against open-access journals and have published in trustworthy ones myself.  I am targeting the rapidly-expanding number of predatory journals.

I think we should keep the two topics separate, rather than confusing readers.  Why don't you raise a new question to trigger a discussion you refer to in your response?  That's the best way to keep matters balanced.

Regards,

Hans 

I agree with Professor Hans Lambers. The aim is NOT to stigmatize the whole scientific community or all of the OA journals. One of the major advantages of  this debate is to show what is going on in the real world. Besides honesty & hard work, there is dishonesty & deception and many of the respected participating colleagues have openned our eyes on areas unknown to us before. One of my friends lost ~ 2000 dollars due to an invitation to a "hoax" scientific conference... Hopefully, our RG friends will NOT fall into similar losses. 

@Hans @Nizar This thread has been an eye opener for me too, and there is a deffinite place for it, I just have to watch too many young postdocs getting the wrong message.

Here is the "success stories" thread. Looking forward to your pointers on what we should promote to young scientists:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_you_use_OpenScience_to_feed_the_Publish_or_Perish_needs_for_measurable_IMPACT?_tpcectx=qa_overview&_trid=53c006eecf57d7297a8b47b0_1

@Ivo  Awareness of the vast and growing number of predatory journals and publishers is most definitely a message we should get across to (young) scientists (I placed "young" in brackets, as I know that some more experienced scientists have unknowingly fallen in the trap as well.

We should NOT promote view that all open-access journals are bad.  Rather, it is of utmost importance to check out the credential of pen-access journals and their editors.  Jeffrey Beall has been most helpful, but even he may find it hard to keep up with the number that keeps expanding.

@Orkid  I understand your point, and realise there are many complications.  I despise those people who run predatory journals as much as their activities. All we can do is to make sure we steer clear of them and their predatory journals, thus depriving them of income they do no deserve and making them disappear. 

There are numerous excellent journals available to publish our work, including bona fide open access journals.  And, let us face it, we can provide open access to our work by making sure everyone who requests a PDF gets one immediately and also by making them available here on RG.

There is absolutely no need to waste our precious resources on predatory journals and the scumbags that run them.

Regards,

Hans 

They are NOT restricted to journals.  Some organise "conferences", sometimes with a misleading name that makes you think they are the top conference in your area.  You pay and travel, to find out there is NO conference.  Watch every step when it comes to these matters!

Some months ago I got a message from a United Nations Science Publishing Group, which sounded unlikely. I went on to check their credits and found - nothing, or I should say rubbish. Then I contacted Jeffrey Beall and notified him of this publisher, which is now - after Jeff's cross-check - in his list. We all can actively contribute to expand the list as necessary and support this valuable endeavour.

Contact Jeffrey at 'jeffrey.beall_at_ucdenver.edu' in case of checking undisclosed senders of emails that are fishy. 

Agreed with Dr Hans Lambers

Hans,

I agree with most everything you have written above.  I have been considering your question in detail for a few weeks now.  The one component of the discussion that is missing is the inclusion of the "predatory" aspect of the publishing journals.  It occurs to me, the restrictive (previously published authors vs unpublished first time authors)  and financially controlling aspects of published journal articles could be considered predatory, or at the very least self-serving.  The desire by authors to share research, data and theory forces individuals to seek alternative behaviors and routes of information sharing.  TED.com, founded by some great minds, has certainly provided an alternative vehicle for information sharing.  The information being shared ranges from valuable to worthless.  However, the selection process for viewing material presented via this vehicle allows individuals to control (watch/ not watch) evaluate and share or not share the information depending on the informations value.  This horizontalization of the "control" of information is impacting on many levels of our societies.  Individually owned solar panels for production of electricity for the grid vs the corporate constructed nuclear power plants would be another example of horizontalization of control.  Open access journals provide the same horizontalization of information.  The predatory/unscrupulous nature of some of the open access journals will sort out in time.  The reputation of individual companies, like all emerging industries and services, requires time to develop.  This process is self-weeding in the long run.  

I had published an article in one listed journal. It has been published in a journal though it was intended as a conference paper but has been rated quite well. The review was relative "light". Nevertheless it was one of the best papers, so it was awarded as well on the conference.

Yes, the content is not high class impact and one would work very hard to get such an "weak" education content in IEEE or similar publishers but to be honest. I do not care. For several reasons:

1. It is out, I can concentrate on other things again.

2. Processing costs are quite low and though it is classed as "predatory", the publishing there is supported by 75% out of general research fund, so I nearly do not need to care about financing!

3. The editing has been very fast. Though they had done an error in the editing, I contacted them and they fixed it within a day.

4. I am having now references for my more crucial science and even for my collegues who can reuse it. It is so much win-win for everyone.

Yes, the review process has not been that harsh. And it is lacking the professionality and the impact of Springer, Nature and Science. But as a humble phd student, I do not care for that. I just would like a source of visibility for the things that my collegues and I have done and that we think are good but not ground shaking. My collegues and I decided to stick with that behaviour. But do not worry, we still continue to publish in expensive impacting journals our best research results. Because we need it, but that is another topic :)

I am not sure why you call those journals "expensive", Thorsten, as most journals will actually NOT charge a fee to publish your material, despite an expensive and thorough peer-review process.  So, you have plenty of alternatives.

You may not care, but those who look at your publication list and consider you for a competitive grant or a position WILL care, so there would be solid incentives to steer clear of those predatory journals.

Regards,

Hans

Hans, thank you for your answer. I like to comment on this as well. The journals that I am considering as an optical engineer are very specific. Usually it is not possible to get into the well known nature and science journals by default. My topics are too uninnovative for that. It is for most natural scientists not even a science ... I guess. Anyways, lets get to the facts: Here are the top 5 of the Thomson Reuters CRIs for "optics" with their publication fees. Left prices are standard publishing // right OA.

NAT PHOTONICS 584$ for first coloured figure, 292$ each other // not possible

LASER PHOTONICS REV none // + 3000 $

LASER PHYS LETT none // + 1950 €

IEEE J SEL TOP QUANT none // +1750 $

OPT EXPRESS not possible // 1080 $ for 6 pages

You are right here. One can write the article to get around fees quite well. And now consider this: My research topic just suites Opt Express. Ok, then again, I can get into lower impact journals which are not having a fee. For OSA that is Applied Optics, for example. But those journals are not Open Access. So what shall I compare here? Open Access against non open access? I like the idea of having the possibility of other researchers to be able to access my articles. So I would aim for my top research to get into optics express (Which is expensive). And still this leaves me the possibility of publishing my "not so good" research in the "predatory" journals. It just adds up quite well.

By the way, I do not publish anything which is directly connected to my phd in those journals. In my case, I was heavly involved in teaching and renewed a  lot of lectures and labs in a half a year full-time job. I published the impact and the how-to of those changings. Nothing more, nothing less. And other teachers from other universites are quite impressed and interested. I got very good feedback so far. Oh, I tried IEEE. They basically showed me the middle finger with a big "state-of-the-art" sign. I tried scholary journals for pedagagy. They commented on my publication with "too technical" and "not within the standards of social science statistics" (they mean here a missing T-test and such analysis which was by data schemes not possible). So, yes. It does not suite neither the one nor the other pure community. And I still get very positive feedback for a publication that was not within the norms and not in a good journal. Which gets me to your last point: I am a phd student. I am judged by my optical engineering publications in the end and everything I do extra is considered as the cream on top. They even like it that I push teaching publications. I got thanks from my professor, my institute president, even the decans. And to avoid a discredit of my professors, there are no professors so far as co-authors. But I think they would not care to be added there, as well. I do not get competitive grants for those publications. I do not get a certain position or a phd. I just get some praise. But they can reuse it for grants. And they will.

For those who just judge by journal names, I like to say: This is too easy. They have certainly the same level of review intensity as the reviewer of those predatory journals.

So, in the end, being a phd student with so much freedom to chose where and what and with whom to publish is rare. But I got my reasons and I think they are valid. It is certainly a special view on the issue.

Dear Thorsten.

Your lengthy response misses a very important point, made in the messages above.  Rather than repeating it, I copy the relevant comment and website comments. "Here is an article illustrating what kind of plagiarised rubbish you can publish there, as long as you pay: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Blinded+scientific+gobbledygook/9757736/story.html. "

Think twice, before you claim: "For those who just judge by journal names, I like to say: This is too easy. They have certainly the same level of review intensity as the reviewer of those predatory journals."  

You are obviously very wrong, as you would have realised had you taken on board the gist of the many messages written before you wrote yours.

Regards,

Hans

Dear Hans,

I read this article already and I read an upper comment as well that nature and IEEE were fooled by some paper generators. I just do not appreciate your black and white view on this topic. I simply meant by this sentence you cited: "Please judge on the content of the article and not by the magazine."

My final comment is this: I had overall good experiences, so far. Maybe this might fall back on me one day, maybe it does not. And even then I can explain it. I had my reasons and I made the best out of it. If I did wrong in the end , then be it.

Balanced greetings,

Thorsten

Balance was added by several contributors by stressing that not all open-access are predatory journals.  Some are highly respectable and insist on a thorough peer-review process.  Predatory journals, by definition, are not highly-respected open access journals.  There is nothing to balance that statement, as "predatory" and "highly respected" simply don't go together, in any language or culture.

Please read this short note published recently in Current Science.

http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/106/09/1173.pdf

Excellent article.  Thanks for alerting all of us to this.  

Dear Gunasekaran Subbiah, Thank you very much for the article you provided. I really recommend reading it by all participants in RG. My regards.

Thanks Dr Lambers  and Dr. Nizar Matar for your comments on my article.

If you have problems, which I did, following Hans Lambers' first link in his question, just copy the address and paste in your browser outside RG.

I also get many unsolicited requests to submit papers to journals, but I often find it very hard to work out what sort of journal it is.  My main requirement for a journal I would send an article to, is whether it will still be around in 20 years time, or will it have disappeared into thin air.  So when I get an email from an OA journal, my first question is What is its business model?", "How is it financed for the long term?"   I have just had an email from HLV, see extract below, but even after going onto its website I still have no idea how reputable it is, nor who subsidises it. 

“Heart, Lung and Vessels” is an open access journal with no publication fee.

Dear Hans, What do you think regarding open access journals which publish only  valuable articles after strict peer review for free (no payed fees)?

Dear Hazem,

I made it clear, right from the start, that I have nothing about the principle of open-access journals.  I have published in such journals myself and made some of my recent papers open access.  It's the "predatory journals" I strongly object to.

Regards,

Hans 

Thanks Hans for clarification.

Kinds regards,

Hazem

Sir,

You are very correct. I often get mails in my box calling for paper submission to journals I don't known. My question is, what step is can technology take to stop such corrupt from cheating and messing academia. Such predatory journals are found in all countries, where institutions or group of people come together to form them. I have also noticed that some of the journals claimed to be high impact journals with scores like 0.76 or more. 

YOUR ADVICE IS WELL NOTED.

They simply "invent" their own Impact Factors, Shekuh Kanteh, adding to thier predatory reputation.  All we can do is ignore them and they will not earn money and thus stop their activities. There are plenty of journals with high Impact Factors in which you can publish without charges.  Why would you want to pay for a predatory journal?

Sir,

I appreciate your response. Please send me a list of high impact factor journals without charges. We in the developing countries often find problem in selecting a journal to submit papers. Some journals charge high fee ($500, $1500, etc), why?

I want to choose you as a mentor. I am sending an abstract of a paper to you for your contribution. Full paper will be ready soon.

Effect of Integrating Weeding Regimes and Hand Picking of Rhizomes on the Control of Imperata cylindrica (L) Beauv.), Growth and Yield of Maize (Zea mays L.) in Sierra Leone

Kanteh S.M, Norman J.E, Edwin J.J.Momoh, Sumah G.

Abstract:

Imperata cylindrica L. (gramineae) is a major problem weed in Sierra Leone, covering most parts of Northem, Southern and Western regions of the country and posing serious threat to agriculture. Besides the environmental hazards associated with pesticides, majority of the farmers in Sierra Leone are illiterates and resource poor, hence cannot afford to buy or interpret label information on pesticide containers. The only option available is brushing and burning, but these practices have failed and are also associated with huge problems. Thus, searching for a low cost, sustainable and environmental friendly method of combating I. cylindrica is crucial for farmers in Sierra Leone. A field study was conducted at Njala University (80 07'north-latitude and 120 05' west-longitudes), Moyamba district, southern Sierra Leone; between August 2014 and October 2014 to determine the effects of integrating weeding regimes and hand picking of rhizomes on the control of I. cylindrica, growth and yield of maize.All treatments were arranged in randomized complete block design and replicated 3 times. Three maize seeds (var: DMRTZ) were planted per hole, and later thinned to two seedlings per stand at two weeks after sowing. Data collected on Imperata cylindrica included; percent cover, population density and shoot length (cm); and data collected on maize plant included; plant height (cm), leaf number, stem diameter, leaf area (cm2), cob/ear number, cob weight (fresh and dry) (g) and 200 seeds weight (g). Results showed that weeding 4 times and rhizomes handpicked either once or twice significantly (P>0.05) suppressed I. cylindrica infestation, and consequently increased the growth and yield of maize. It is therefore concluded that an integrated approach, through weeding 4 times and rhizomes handpicked twice, though labour intensive has the potential to control I. Cylindrca, and at the same time support better growth and yield of Zea mays. A repeat of the trial is needed to confirm results obtained.

Key words: Imperata cylindrica, hand picking of rhizomes, weeding regimes

"There are plenty of journals with high Impact Factors in which you can publish without charges"

But are they Open Access journals?  If so, who pays?

Most of my papers get published in journals that do NOT charge a fee, because I can't afford to pay those high charges.  I would go to the ISI website to check relevant journals in which you seek to publish: https://jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com/JCRJournalHomeAction.action?SID=B2-XQGHpRmggBxxeSWUqY69ua6x2BByfsSG84E-18x2dv3HHRM1LM3Kix2BC4bxxs5fRAx3Dx3DHQRtsBpx2B2sRFScN1jx2Bmz0gx3Dx3D-9vvmzcndpRgQCGPd1c2qPQx3Dx3D-wx2BJQh9GKVmtdJw3700KssQx3Dx3D&SrcApp=IC2LS&Init=Yes&wsid=N2FhmmyYR7vYI8Gd1Za.

If you cannot access that site, email me or send me a message, and I will send you the list for ecology.  Most of the top journals on that list do NOT charge.  On a journal's website, you can find out about charges.