December 1, 2013

Musings on mock conferences and predatory journals - Copy Shake and Paste

Jeffrey Beall published the "evaluation form" from a scientist who was lured to one of the many OMICS mock conferences. He describes pretty much all of the behavior that is found at such conferences: no involvement of the people on the committees, shortening the conference, massive no-shows, lots of pictures and awards and a fancy web site. It took a lot of effort on his part to get his name removed from their web site, the entire page has now been pulled. Perhaps scientists should quit attending large conferences at hotels, instead sticking to smaller, focused conferences held at universities?

OMICS also publish a wide range of "open access" journals that are on the predatory publishing list. I wonder how many of the "editors-in-chief" actually know that they are editors here?

One of the commenters noted that there is now a CWTS Journal indicator that calculates an impact factor that is normalized according to the field for journals in the SCOPUS database. I looked up a few journals, they seem to have only English-language journals listed. Even just looking at my field, I see so very many journals, how on earth are people able to read all of them? It might be good to check out the journals you are planning on submitting to before you dash off that manuscript.

Random Posts


  • Summation Letter on Plagiarism Case: Psychopathy requires legal entitlement, not logic or shame

    Zahir EbrahimThis is to summarize the situation since my discovery of the masterpiece of plagiarism in a tortuous system of willfully aiding and abetting the theft of intellectual property amidst lip-service to high piety, on Sept. 28, 2011.Over a hundred senior academics and senior civil servants o... READ MORE>>

  • Foreign student rule-breaking: culture clash or survival skills? -TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION

    Jon MarcusNorth American administrators call high rates of plagiarism 'tip of the iceberg'. Jon Marcus reportsGary Pavela remembers being surprised by the defiant reaction of a visiting student from China who he confronted over a clear-cut incident of plagiarism."But in my culture, we view it as hon... READ MORE>>

  • Retracted Science and the Retraction Index

    Ferric C. Fang, Editor in ChiefArturo Casadevall, Editor in ChiefR. P. Morrison, EditorInfection and Immunity Articles may be retracted when their findings are no longer considered trustworthy due to scientific misconduct or error, they plagiarize previously published work, or th... READ MORE>>

  • Science publishing: The trouble with retractions - NATURE

    A surge in withdrawn papers is highlighting weaknesses in the system for handling them.Richard Van NoordenThis week, some 27,000 freshly published research articles will pour into the Web of Science, Thomson Reuters' vast online database of scientific publications. Almost all of these papers will st... READ MORE>>

  • Paper mill websites increase in Turkey

    Çağla Pınar Tunçel - Hürriyet Daily NewsAcademics have decried the rise in the number of Turkish “paper mill” websites offering to write theses for students, yet company officials have defended their business, saying they are legal even as scholars warn of the ramifications.“Our company, which is ru... READ MORE>>

  • Publish-or-perish: Peer review and the corruption of science - The Guardian

    David Colquhoun    Pressure on scientists to publish has led to a situation where any paper, however bad, can now be printed in a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed.Peer review is the process that decides whether your work gets published in an academic journal. It doesn't work ve... READ MORE>>

  • Q&A: The Impact of Retractions - TheScientist

    Is the pressure of the publish-or-perish mentality driving more researchers to commit misconduct? By Tia Ghose  After six articles from a single research group—the laboratory of Naoki Mori at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan—were retracted from Infection and Immunity earlier this year, Ed... READ MORE>>

.

.
.

Popular Posts