[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
You might want to check further re: Hindawi … I noticed that some of their journals seem to have an enormous increase in the number of published articles … seemingly far above what could be reasonably be peer reviewed? This data is from journals indexed by Web of Science or PubMed … and I haven’t had time to dig further. Some of the Hindawi journals are publishing ~10 papers a day. That could be over two million dollars a year income (@$600/article) for a single journal (e.g. Scientific World Journal). Please note the spike in publications when Hindawi changed some journal titles or picked up a ‘new’ title: === Biomed Research International – 2013+ 2013 (2,119) 2014 (3,698) Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology – 2003-2012 2003 (34) 2006 (64) 2009 (166) 2011 (426) 2004 (52) 2007 (45) 2010 (430) 2012 (490) 2005 (45) 2008 (48) = Scientific World Journal – 2012+ 2012 (1,160)2013 (1,533) 2014 (3,073) This from its Wikipedia entry: The Scientific World Journal (formerly, The ScientificWorldJournal) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering fields in the life sciences ranging from biomedicine to environmental sciences. It was established in 2001 and is (since 2013) published by Hindawi Publishing Corporation. The journal will not be listed in the 2015 Journal Citation Reports because of anomalous citation patterns. PubMed still lists the journal under its original title: ScientificWorldJournal 20143589 20131521 20121154 2011238 2010229 2009160 2008149 2007247 2006263 2005108 2004166 2003117 2002205 2001234 20002 === There are also problems with some of their long held titles: Mathematical Problems in Engineering 1995 (20) 2001 (33) 2006 (87)2011 (270) 1996 (31) 2002 (38) 2007 (59)2012 (725) 1997 (9) 2003 (12) 2008 (97)2013 (1,758) 1998 (31) 2004 (26) 2009 (197) 2014 (2,098) 1999 (22) 2005 (48) 2010 (288) 2000 (31) Dana L. Roth Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Bo-Christer Björk Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2015 9:42 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci); David Solomon Subject: [GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt Hi all, The 1500 USD charged by Hindawi for the journal in question is by global standards fairly reasonable, given the impact factor level of the journal. The problem is that uniform APCs for all countries is probably unsustainable in the long run. For this reason many gold OA journals give Waivers for authors from developing countries. In this particular case authors from around 60 countries, mainly from Africa and Asia and curiously also Ukraine can get waivers. Egypt alas is not on the relevant World Bank list. The leading publishers do not charge the same amounts for big deal subscription licenses in different countries, but take into account the potential customers ability to pay (its a bit like airline ticketing). Likewise I would hope that if we convert to a dominating APC funded gold OA solution, then OA publishers will develop more tieried APC schemes than the current binominal full APC- waiver one. There are already some examples of policies with at least three levels. Bo-Christer Björk On 4/11/15 5:58 PM, Heather Morrison wrote: David, Jan Peter: thank you for your comments. I agree with some of what you say, would like to point to where we said basically the same things in the original post. and have some comments to add: Agreed - Hindawi has a deserved reputation as a leader in scholarly publishing, and in particular for commitment to quality. I also acknowledge that Egyptian researchers can benefit by reading the OA works of others. Following are words to this effect from the
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 1:53 AM, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: Some of the Hindawi journals are publishing ~10 papers a day. That could be over two million dollars a year income (@$600/article) for a single journal (e.g. Scientific World Journal). I have no involvement with Hindawi and no comment on their quality, but 10 papers/day is not in itself a problem. PLoSONE publishes ca 150 papers/day and I would assume SWJ covers a number of subjects. There are many established journals with high publication rates. For example Tetrahedron Letters (which only publishes chemical syntheses) can publish 50 papers/week (7 papers per day) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00404039/56/2 (and a 2-page paper can cost 41 USD for 24 hours read) If that is aggregated with Tetrahedron (the same subject matter, but longer papers), then Elsevier can publish over 100 papers in chemical synthesis alone in some weeks. P. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
Amongst the largest 200 journals in the world (by number of articles published with a doi number assigned), there are about 50 journals that published 10 papers or more per business day in 2014. There are also many large, established journals in chemistry and physics, see: http://sciforum.net/statistics/top-journals Kind regards, Dietrich Rordorf On 21.04.2015 09:01, Peter Murray-Rust wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 1:53 AM, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edu mailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: Some of the Hindawi journals are publishing ~10 papers a day. That could be over two million dollars a year income (@$600/article) for a single journal (e.g. Scientific World Journal). I have no involvement with Hindawi and no comment on their quality, but 10 papers/day is not in itself a problem. PLoSONE publishes ca 150 papers/day and I would assume SWJ covers a number of subjects. There are many established journals with high publication rates. For example Tetrahedron Letters (which only publishes chemical syntheses) can publish 50 papers/week (7 papers per day) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00404039/56/2 (and a 2-page paper can cost 41 USD for 24 hours read) If that is aggregated with Tetrahedron (the same subject matter, but longer papers), then Elsevier can publish over 100 papers in chemical synthesis alone in some weeks. P. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
Just to be silly: US$ 6000 for the high end western APC is more than the amount of one month salary of a senior scientist here in France. :-( Serge Envoyé d'un téléphone portable, désolé pour le caractère inélégant... Le 11 avr. 2015 à 19:04, Bo-Christer Björk bo-christer.bj...@hanken.fi a écrit : Hi all, The 1500 USD charged by Hindawi for the journal in question is by global standards fairly reasonable, given the impact factor level of the journal. The problem is that uniform APCs for all countries is probably unsustainable in the long run. For this reason many gold OA journals give Waivers for authors from developing countries. In this particular case authors from around 60 countries, mainly from Africa and Asia and curiously also Ukraine can get waivers. Egypt alas is not on the relevant World Bank list. The leading publishers do not charge the same amounts for big deal subscription licenses in different countries, but take into account the potential customers ability to pay (its a bit like airline ticketing). Likewise I would hope that if we convert to a dominating APC funded gold OA solution, then OA publishers will develop more tieried APC schemes than the current binominal full APC- waiver one. There are already some examples of policies with at least three levels. Bo-Christer Björk On 4/11/15 5:58 PM, Heather Morrison wrote: David, Jan Peter: thank you for your comments. I agree with some of what you say, would like to point to where we said basically the same things in the original post. and have some comments to add: Agreed - Hindawi has a deserved reputation as a leader in scholarly publishing, and in particular for commitment to quality. I also acknowledge that Egyptian researchers can benefit by reading the OA works of others. Following are words to this effect from the original blogpost: Details, first paragraph: Hindawi is an open access commercial publishing success story and an Egyptian business success story. Hindawi Publishing Corporation was founded by Ahmed Hindawi who, in an interview with Richard Poynder conducted in September 2012, confirmed a revenue of millions of dollars from APCs alone – a $3.3 net profit on $12 million in revenue, a 28% profit rate (Poynder, 2012). Hindawi is highly respected in open access publishing circles, and was an early leader in establishing the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA), an organization that takes quality in publishing seriously. Towards the end: Egyptian researchers can read open access works of others. http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/10/who-is-served-by-for-profit-gold-open-access-publishing-a-case-study-of-hindawi-and-egypt/ David Prosser said: I know of no country where APCs are mainly paid from academic salaries. In the same way that centrifuges, reagents, etc., etc. tend not to be paid for from salaries. They are mainly paid from research grants and so the comparison to salaries strikes me as meaningless. Comment: one way to think of this is that there are larger pools of funds from which both academic salaries and monies for other expenses (including APCs, subscription payments, reagents) are drawn. I argue that providing funds for research per se is a necessary precondition to dissemination of research results. I further argue that research funders working in the developing world will be more effective if they prioritize funding for academic salaries, student support, and other direct supports for actually doing the research, rather than paying APCs. A subsidy of two APCs for Hindawi's Disease Markers - or a single APC of $3,000 charged by some other publishers - would pay a year's salary for a lecturer position in Egypt. Of course I am Canadian, have never been to Egypt, and do not speak Arabic. I am merely commenting on the impact of a model that I am viewing from a distance. To understand what is best for Egypt and her researchers requires in-depth knowledge of the country, consultation with and ideally leadership by Egyptian researchers themselves. best, Heather Morrison ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
I agree completely with what Jan and David have said. If the purpose a journal is to communicate between author and reader without frills and publisher-junk (cf. Tufte's chart-junk) then Hindawi journals come high up my list. Conversely many mainstream publishers' technical offerings are simply appalling. They create output which is designed to promote and brand the publisher rather than communicate science. As I am partially moving into plant science I have been working on content-mining (machine reading) the Hindawi International Journal of Agronomy (http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ija/ ). The content is a clear reporting of basic scientific knowledge; it may not enhance author's prestige factors in our sick metric society, but it provides material that is useful for making sure the world has enough to eat. It's honest (compliant with the Open Definition, CC-BY) well prepared and with no wasted effort on unnecessary publisher-junk (e.g. publisher marketing). In particular the content is well prepared (e.g. uses compliant HTML and Unicode, with vector graphics) while larger publishers like XXx destroy vector graphics, XXX can't even create compliant XML and Xxxx and many others actively lobby against contentmining. P. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
David, Jan Peter: thank you for your comments. I agree with some of what you say, would like to point to where we said basically the same things in the original post. and have some comments to add: Agreed - Hindawi has a deserved reputation as a leader in scholarly publishing, and in particular for commitment to quality. I also acknowledge that Egyptian researchers can benefit by reading the OA works of others. Following are words to this effect from the original blogpost: Details, first paragraph: Hindawi is an open access commercial publishing success story and an Egyptian business success story. Hindawi Publishing Corporation was founded by Ahmed Hindawi who, in an interview with Richard Poynder conducted in September 2012, confirmed a revenue of millions of dollars from APCs alone – a $3.3 net profit on $12 million in revenue, a 28% profit rate (Poynder, 2012). Hindawi is highly respected in open access publishing circles, and was an early leader in establishing the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA), an organization that takes quality in publishing seriously. Towards the end: Egyptian researchers can read open access works of others. http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/10/who-is-served-by-for-profit-gold-open-access-publishing-a-case-study-of-hindawi-and-egypt/ David Prosser said: I know of no country where APCs are mainly paid from academic salaries. In the same way that centrifuges, reagents, etc., etc. tend not to be paid for from salaries. They are mainly paid from research grants and so the comparison to salaries strikes me as meaningless. Comment: one way to think of this is that there are larger pools of funds from which both academic salaries and monies for other expenses (including APCs, subscription payments, reagents) are drawn. I argue that providing funds for research per se is a necessary precondition to dissemination of research results. I further argue that research funders working in the developing world will be more effective if they prioritize funding for academic salaries, student support, and other direct supports for actually doing the research, rather than paying APCs. A subsidy of two APCs for Hindawi's Disease Markers - or a single APC of $3,000 charged by some other publishers - would pay a year's salary for a lecturer position in Egypt. Of course I am Canadian, have never been to Egypt, and do not speak Arabic. I am merely commenting on the impact of a model that I am viewing from a distance. To understand what is best for Egypt and her researchers requires in-depth knowledge of the country, consultation with and ideally leadership by Egyptian researchers themselves. best, Heather Morrison ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Who benefits from for-profit open access publishing? A case study of Hindawi and Egypt
Hi all, The 1500 USD charged by Hindawi for the journal in question is by global standards fairly reasonable, given the impact factor level of the journal. The problem is that uniform APCs for all countries is probably unsustainable in the long run. For this reason many gold OA journals give Waivers for authors from developing countries. In this particular case authors from around 60 countries, mainly from Africa and Asia and curiously also Ukraine can get waivers. Egypt alas is not on the relevant World Bank list. The leading publishers do not charge the same amounts for big deal subscription licenses in different countries, but take into account the potential customers ability to pay (its a bit like airline ticketing). Likewise I would hope that if we convert to a dominating APC funded gold OA solution, then OA publishers will develop more tieried APC schemes than the current binominal full APC- waiver one. There are already some examples of policies with at least three levels. Bo-Christer Björk On 4/11/15 5:58 PM, Heather Morrison wrote: David, Jan Peter: thank you for your comments. I agree with some of what you say, would like to point to where we said basically the same things in the original post. and have some comments to add: Agreed - Hindawi has a deserved reputation as a leader in scholarly publishing, and in particular for commitment to quality. I also acknowledge that Egyptian researchers can benefit by reading the OA works of others. Following are words to this effect from the original blogpost: Details, first paragraph: Hindawi is an open access commercial publishing success story and an Egyptian business success story. Hindawi Publishing Corporation was founded by Ahmed Hindawi who, in an interview with Richard Poynder conducted in September 2012, confirmed a revenue of millions of dollars from APCs alone – a $3.3 net profit on $12 million in revenue, a 28% profit rate (Poynder, 2012). Hindawi is highly respected in open access publishing circles, and was an early leader in establishing the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA), an organization that takes quality in publishing seriously. Towards the end: Egyptian researchers can read open access works of others. http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/10/who-is-served-by-for-profit-gold-open-access-publishing-a-case-study-of-hindawi-and-egypt/ David Prosser said: I know of no country where APCs are mainly paid from academic salaries. In the same way that centrifuges, reagents, etc., etc. tend not to be paid for from salaries. They are mainly paid from research grants and so the comparison to salaries strikes me as meaningless. Comment: one way to think of this is that there are larger pools of funds from which both academic salaries and monies for other expenses (including APCs, subscription payments, reagents) are drawn. I argue that providing funds for research per se is a necessary precondition to dissemination of research results. I further argue that research funders working in the developing world will be more effective if they prioritize funding for academic salaries, student support, and other direct supports for actually doing the research, rather than paying APCs. A subsidy of two APCs for Hindawi's Disease Markers - or a single APC of $3,000 charged by some other publishers - would pay a year's salary for a lecturer position in Egypt. Of course I am Canadian, have never been to Egypt, and do not speak Arabic. I am merely commenting on the impact of a model that I am viewing from a distance. To understand what is best for Egypt and her researchers requires in-depth knowledge of the country, consultation with and ideally leadership by Egyptian researchers themselves. best, Heather Morrison ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
