This writer presents the problem in the title much better than did the original aritlce in Science. He is targeting predatory journals, whereas the original paper was targeting open access journals. Read the original article in Science carefully. The author indicates he
There are several publishers that have hundreds of BS journals. I can set up a study that shows high or low acceptance of any paper. Did he control for publisher? Obviously he didn't do a controlled study at all. He states right there that there were only 35 journals that overlapped the predatory journal list and the directory of open access journal lists. He made a study selecting 304 journals from among 2054 qualifying journals produced by 438 publishers, and somehow 49% (121 journals) were produced by the 32% of publishers (59/181) known to be predatory. The probability of getting 59 publishers by random is incredibly small, but it skews the data immensely. From this, we must EXPECT 49% to accept the paper. He got 52%. That means that either 3% of the journals he approached are predatory and have not yet been identified as such, or that there was a grievous breakdown in the peer review process. Even if we assume all 3% were incorrectly published, that is hardly a large number. However, all 49% of KNOWN predatory journals should be excluded because they invalidate the focus of the study, do open access journals do adequate peer review. As predatory journals, they are not journals and not eligible for inclusion. So, he actually surveyed 183 supposedly legit open access journals, ~37 (20%) must have accepted it wrongly. This is still bad, but knowing that at least one journal was a highly specialized medical journal that only published 1-2 articles/year for the past 5 years, I would question its legitimacy. I have no doubt that most of these were predatory journals that simply have not yet been identified. This again, is not open access, it is a problem with predatory journals because at least 80% of the jouranls surveyed did exactly as expected on a single article written to intentionally sting people. Compare that to the number of top two general science journals that have had to retract papers later after learning the papers were bogus...100%. On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 1:59 PM, John A. <[email protected]> wrote: > An article on the growth and operation of predatory journals, and their > potentially corrosive effect on academic ethics: > > > http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Blinded+scientific+gobbledygook/9757736/story.html > -- Malcolm L. McCallum Department of Environmental Studies University of Illinois at Springfield Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology “Nothing is more priceless and worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.” -President Richard Nixon upon signing the Endangered Species Act of 1973 into law. "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
