predatory journals - Science-Education-Research

Opinion is divided on the value of expert reviewers

Should academic journals carefully select suitable subject experts to review manuscripts submitted for review? Opinion is divided on the subject

Keith S. Taber

Edmund, Lord Blackadder seeks to charter Captain Redbeard Rum's ship

Edmund: I was under the impression that it was common maritime practice for a ship to have a crew.
Rum: Opinion is divided on the subject.
Edmund: Oh, really?
Rum: Yahs. All the other captains say it is; I say it isn't. *

Dear JAMME/AMSE International OCSCO World Press

Thank you for your invitation (26th April 2021, repeated 27th April 2021, and repeated again 28th April 2021), the "Notification from the ICI Publishers Panel system", to review a manuscript with the title:

"Identification of Complex Product Systems R&D Supply Chain Critical Success Factors Using Interpretive Structural Modelling (Case Study: Aviation Industries Organization, Iran)"

Accepting a review assignment without an abstract

I see you wish me to "kindly critically evaluate this manuscript via ICI Publishers Panel" – which seems to be a portal for journals without their own on-line system for handling manuscript submissions and reviewing.

I note that you have not sent me an abstract, and that the only way I can access this manuscript is by going to the panel website and registering with the system.

Two opinions on identifying experts

I can only guess why you think I might know something about product systems R&D supply chains, and/or have some expertise in structural modelling, and/or have specialist knowledge of the aviation industry. It seems 'opinion is divided on the subject' of how journals should identify and assign reviewers. The old school approach involves keeping a database of experts in a field, with details of their research interests and specialist areas of knowledge. I assume that is not how International OCSCO World Press chooses to operate as if you checked out potential reviewers to find our their areas of expertise, then you would not be bothering me with this inappropriately directed request.

One idea that crosses my mind is perhaps you operate on a familiar scamming mode of sending out multiple invitations to lists of email addresses to entice some arbitrary respondents (academics, and perhaps arbitrary people with email) to respond by signing up for your panel so you have their information. Generally such scams work by sending out enough copies of an email that simply by chance a few respondents find the invitation is actually relevant to their work and understandably assume they are being invited in a principled way (that is, in the way competent and honest publishers work). Your approach would seem to be either a very incompetent or a very dishonest way of working – either way you will appreciate why I decline to join your panel.

The journal office does not wish to be contacted

I notice that your email is "noreply@indexcopernicus.com" so I imagine you are not going to bother to read this reply.** (Although if I post it online, you may come across it – or at least others searching for information about your requests might).

That would explain the repeated requests, as you would not have noticed my auto-response suggesting that "Invitations to write, edit, chair, talk, lecture, review, evaluate, collaborate, etc., in areas that are clearly well outside my own limited areas of academic expertise (such as can be determined from the most cursory web search) will be treated as spam – regardless of any attempts to praise my non-existent contributions in these areas (e.g., https://science-education-research.com/keith-s-taber-acclaimed-polymath-apparently/)". It also means you likely did not notice that "If you send out your invitations from an email address that rejects responses or is not monitored for replies, and so miss this response, I will assume that you appreciate why I would choose to treat any follow-up messages accordingly".

Do submitting authors appreciate how the journal works?

I wonder if there really is a paper called "Identification of Complex Product Systems R&D Supply Chain Critical Success Factors Using Interpretive Structural Modelling (Case Study: Aviation Industries Organization, Iran)" which has been submitted somewhere for review. Perhaps to the 'Archives of Materials Science and Engineering' or the 'Journal of Achievements in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering' (i.e., JAMME /AMSE ?) I must admit to never having previously heard of these journals, although clearly you do not feel that disqualifies me as being a suitable expert to evaluate work in them.

If so, I wonder if the author(s) of "Identification of Complex Product Systems R&D Supply Chain Critical Success Factors…" are aware that they have sent their work to a publisher that has decided not to adopt the traditional approach associated with high status journals of taking the time to identify referees with genuine expertise related to the submitted manuscript?

[Read about 'peer review' – the system used by academic journals to evaluate submissions]

[Read about:'Journals and poor academic practice']

Review request to 'Dear Reviewer' inviting a 'sign up' to do some arbitrary unremunerated work

* 'Potato' episode from Blackadder II (BBC Comedy show), written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton

** The only reponses to my reply so far have been two further repeats of the original invitation sent the following day (29/04/2021) and 04/05/2021.

A special waiver for my paper in 'The Educaitonal Review, USA'

I have been critical in this blog and elsewhere about the behaviour of predatory journals that use dishonest methods and/or which short-cut proper peer review to attract business. I just received an invitation that at first sight seemed to fit into this category, although on closer inspection I suspect is actually something more sinister.

The message was as follows:

As the screen-shot above shows, the email was from er@cutablw.com, but the email was set up to send replies to education@hillpublisher.com. That seems odd as the email is from a completely different domain name (and from a time zone ahead of the UK, so not the US) – a common indicator of some kind of scam.

Another predatory journal?

At face value I was being asked to submit a paper for publication, by November 10th for publication on November 16th, apparently with no peer review and so avoiding all that delay and extra work of modifying a perfectly good paper in order to meet the misjudged and idiosyncratic suggestion of reviewers who clearly have not read the work carefully and do not really understand the topic. Well, sometimes it seems like that – but if we want the credit of publishing in peer reviewed outlets then the cost is peer review.

[Read about 'Peer review in academic publishing']

This was not the first invitation of that kind I had received, so 'The Educational Review, USA' (or if you prefer, 'The Educaitonal [sic] Review, USA') seemed to be just another predatory journal, albeit one which was considerate enough to apparently be "dedicated to improve [my] paper's impact".

The logic of such journals is that academics have to publish to get promoted, sometimes to keep their jobs, and even to get appointed in the first place, so they will surely pay good money for publication. If the focus of the journal is to maximise income, then it needs to publish as many papers as possible, and peer review would just get in the way by slowing things down and even losing some contributions. The logic here is to persuade an author of an easy publication, so they are prepared to pay a substantial fee.

[Read more about 'Predatory journals']

Yet here I was being offered a waiver.

So, was this one of those offers that I would find had finished yesterday and my paper could still be published but at cost, or was the offer only available on my third publication, or was some other condition attached? Well, there was at least one condition attached: I had to submit my paper by replying to education@hillpublisher.com.

There was still a credible explanation: sometimes when journals are relatively new, or not getting much interest, they may try to increase their impact by inviting and publishing well-established authors (which perhaps increases internet traffic, or reassures other authors that this is a decent journal). So, offering waivers to particular authors at specific times might still be a tactic that is consistent with an overall strategy to maximise income by selling publication.

I learnt more

The email had a link to find out more. I went where angels fear to click. This led me to the webpages of 'The Educational Review, USA' published monthly by Hill Publishing Group with the ISSN identification shown in the email.

I was able to find from the website that normally being published in that journal would lead to a fee (f0r someone in a high income country) of $400 for a paper up to 15 pages, with a further charge of $50 for each additional page. Given my verbose nature, the waiver being offered would save me many hundreds of US dollars. If I had something ready to publish, and was not sure where to send it, or was worried it might be too weak to survive peer review, then this was looking like a good option.

A waiver on peer review?

However, I was also able to find on the website details of the peer review process. After initial screening,

an Associate Editor with appropriate expertise in the subject area or study design… is responsible for identifying at least 2 external peer reviewers with expertise in the topic or specialty [sic, speciality] of the paper. The peer review process may require 2 to 4 weeks before the decision is reached…
After the authors submit their revision, the manuscript undergoes another peer-review, or it will be sent to the Editor-in-Chief for a final decision, if appropriate.

This did not sound so different to a serious journal, one that actually sought to only publish work of reasonable quality.

So perhaps by avoiding the on-line submission and replying directly to education@hillpublisher.com I not only got a waiver on the fee, but avoided peer review altogether. Sometimes even decent journals publish invited contributions identified as such without full peer review. This would normally be an article from an especially distinguished scholar. Obviously [sic] my status as a giant in the field (I was being enticed to think) meant I was being asked to make an invited contribution that would not need peer review.

Some kind of scam?

But I am fairly sure this is actually some kind of scam, although I've not yet worked out how this is meant to work to the scammer's advantage – unless after I submit my paper I twill hen get told there will be a fee after all. Apart form the different domain name of the actual sender, I also noticed a redirect on the link to find out more.

The embedded link was to http://i7q.cn/5LFrGY – a form of address which both shortens the full URL, and in doing so also hides any domain information. Although it did take me to the Hill Publishing Company (where there does indeed seem to be a Jim Morrison operating, spoiling my illusion that the scammer worked alongside Janis and Jimi and Sandy, and maybe even Elvis), only after being redirected from a page telling me

出错啦！！您访问的内容不存在或被安全软件禁止了…

which Google Scholar kindly suggested might mean

Something went wrong! ! The content you are visiting does not exist or is banned by security software…

Another clue is that although replying to education@hillpublisher.com seems to be sending a message to the Hill Publishing Group, the journal's actual email address is edu@hillpublisher.com. Now it is certainly possible for organisations to have multiple email addresses assigned to the same department (e.g., journal), but a websearch suggests education@hillpublisher.com is not used publicly anywhere – although, intriguingly the 'The Educational Review, USA' seems to have previously used the email address education@hillpublishing.org.

A definite scam?

So this looks like a definite scam. Even quite unsophisticated schemes of this kind can be effective as if enough emails addresses are targeted, then even a very tiny response rate may be productive. But would serious scholars really believe that they might be able to get their work published in a research journal without peer review, and in less than a week after submission? Sadly there are enough journals out there which seem to have little concern for academic standards and are just about extracting money from authors by making such offers that this approach could have been seen as quite convincing.

The state of academic publishing has become so degraded that it has become difficult to distinguish a genuine invitation to pay to publish without regard to quality standards, from actual criminal activity!

The chemistry curriculum, mental health, and self-regulation

Keith S. Taber

Dear [Assistant Editor]

Thank you for your message about the special Issue entitled "Mental Health Intervention and Self-Regulation in Childhood and Adolescents", to be published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

I am honoured, of course, that you think that, based on my expertise in this field, I could make an excellent contribution.

I was, however, rather unsure on what grounds that you considered I have expertise in "the field" – assuming the field you refer to here is one of Mental Health, Self-Regulation, Environmental Research, or Public Health.

Whilst I am very happy to be contacted in relation to the expertise I do actually have, the lack of any obvious basis for your evaluation of my expertise in relation to this particular special issue theme made me suspect that your message is really just direct marketing for your business rather than a genuine attempt to reach out to a scholar engaged in relevant work. I have been subjected to my fair share of shoddy approaches of that kind (https://science-education-research.com/academic-standards/journals-and-poor-academic-practice/).

So, I have done a search to see if I could find the earlier message that you refer to. I find that in your previous message you had explained that you ("we", so I assume you and Profs. Pichardo Martínez and Romero López) thought that I could make an excellent contribution based on my expertise and my paper "Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge", published in 'Foundations of Chemistry'.

I would like to think that you were really impressed with 'Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge' and could see some obvious link between this work and the topic of how self-regulation can become a fundamental element that underlies much of the behaviour, both adapted and maladaptive, which develops during childhood and adolescence. Sadly, I am not seeing the connection.

Perhaps this is a failure of my imagination, in which case I would be very happy to hear from you, or from one of Prof. Pichardo Martínez or Prof. Romero López, about how you see my expertise as potentially offering insight into the special issue.

If I do not hear back from you with a feasible explanation, then I will simply conclude your messages are dishonest and that you see no more connection between my paper and your journal issue than I do, and this is yet another example of a journal that does not adhere to normal academic standards of conduct (presenting itself as if a serious scholarly endeavour whilst actually treating academic publishing as no more than selling a commodity).

I look forward to hearing what you found so interesting and pertinent about "Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge". I would be very pleased to find my cynicism is misplaced and that your approach was truthful: that you have indeed studied my paper and found something of genuine interest in my analysis of the presentation of chemistry concepts in the English school curriculum that you feel suggests I am in a position to make an original contribution about the influence of self-regulation on the personal, social, and academic development of children and adolescents. I look forward to your reflections on my paper.

Best wishes

Keith

On 22/10/2020 12:10, [Assistant Editor] wrote:

Dear Dr. Taber,

We contacted you on 10th of August, regarding a Special Issue entitled "Mental Health Intervention and Self-Regulation in Childhood and Adolescents", to be published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601, IF 2.849). Prof. Dr. M. Carmen Pichardo Martínez and Prof. Dr. Miriam Romero-López are serving as Guest Editors for this issue. Based on your expertise in this field, we think you could make an excellent contribution.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to explore how self-regulation can become a fundamental element that underlies much of the behavior, both adapted and maladaptive, which develops during childhood and adolescence. In general, this Issue aims to collect original contributions that work on issues related to the influence of self-regulation on the personal, social, and academic development of children and adolescents.

...


We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

...
Assistant Editor

On 10/08/2020 11:02, [Assistant Editor] wrote:

Dear Dr. Taber,

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601, IF 2.849) is currently running a Special Issue entitled "Mental Health Intervention and Self-Regulation in Childhood and Adolescents". Prof. Dr. M. Carmen Pichardo Martínez and Prof. Dr. Miriam Romero-López are serving as Guest Editors for this issue. We think you could make an excellent contribution based on your expertise and your following paper:

Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge. FOUNDATIONS OF CHEMISTRY 2020, 22, 309-334.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to explore how self-regulation can become a fundamental element that underlies much of the behavior, both adapted and maladaptive, which develops during childhood and adolescence.

...
We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,
...
Assistant Editor

Update: a response to my letter

Dear [Assistant Editor]

Thank you for getting back to me.

I am surprised that you found 'some contents related to learning behaviours in children in [my] published work "Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge"' as the paper was a philosophical analysis of some aspects of a curriculum document in relation to canonical disciplinary knowledge. I do not recall any specific content that was substantially about learning behaviours in children.

However, I am pleased that you were able to find something of interest in your reading of the paper.

Best wishes

Keith

On 10/08/2020 11:02, [Assistant Editor] wrote:

Dear Dr. Taber,

Thank you for your kind feedback.

We found that there are some contents related to learning behaviors in children in your published work "Conceptual confusion in the chemistry curriculum: exemplifying the problematic nature of representing chemical concepts as target knowledge". We now understand that there may be a deviation between them.

We are sorry if this Special Issue does not fit into the scope of your research.

Kind regards,
...
Assistant Editor

At least the journal did me the courtesy of replying, and behaving politely. I chose to ignore the 'disclaimer' that "You may not copy this message in its entirety or in part, or disclose its contents to anyone" as I am not prepared to receive unsolicited emails on that basis. If people do not wish me to share their messages then they have the option of not bothering me in the first place. [Read: "It's a secret conference invitation: pass it on…"]

Alternative Conceptions, the Learning of Chemistry, and the Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products

Keith S. Taber

I am currently waiting to hear back from 'the editorial team' at the 'Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products' (Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Eleni Skaltsa, University of Athens) who wish to discuss some points arising from my article Alternative Conceptions and the Learning of Chemistry with me.

On 09/09/2020 11:00, Prof Keith S Taber wrote:

Dear Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Editorial Team

Thank you for your email.

I am pleased that you found my article "Alternative Conceptions and the Learning of Chemistry", both interesting and informative.

I understand you seek clarification on a few points in the article. If you are able to send me your questions, I will seek to answers them as best I can.

Best wishes

Keith

Or so they write.*

I'd be happy to discuss anything arising from their reading of my article. Academics are usually happy to talk about their own work, as these correspondents are presumably aware.

Not a cynic…

A cynic might suspect that 'the editorial team' of the 'Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products' (published by an organisation called Hilaris SRL based in Brussels) are really only interested in getting a submission from me, along with the €1705 (!) article processing charge (APC).

After all, the editorial team of a respectable journal would not use such an approach just as a ruse, would they? So, if the editorial team of the 'Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products' considers itself a respectable journal… Surely, Prof. Skaltsa and her colleagues would not do anything as dishonest as claiming that they were interested in my article and wanted to discuss academics issues raised by it, simply as a pretext to try and get money out of me?

…but a sceptic

I try not to be a cynic, but as a scientist I do try to maintain a sceptical attitude – and I would not be that surprised if Prof. Skaltsa knows nothing about the message sent out by the journal on behalf of the 'editorial team' that she leads. (I would not be surprised because I have seen precisely this situation with another journal behaving in a predatory way.)

I do not think I have any expertise in Pharmacognosy and Natural Products, but the journal has a generous range of types of contributions they consider**, so perhaps if they are prepared to waive the APC in exchange for my offering consultation on the topic of alternative conceptions and the learning of chemistry I could consider writing something for them. Perhaps a letter to the editor about honesty in dealings with the scholarly community?

* On 09/09/2020 09:02, Pharmacognosy Natural Products wrote:

Dear Dr. Prof. Keith S. Taber,

We read your article entitled "Alternative Conceptions and the Learning of Chemistry", which is interesting and informative.

We would like to discuss few points regarding the above publication and also, we are inviting you kindly give us your new work for publication.

If you are interested, please reply.

Thank you and Regards,

Editorial Team

Journal of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products

Brussels, Belgium

** According to the journal website, the publisher accepts the following kinds of submission:

original articles,
reviews,
abstracts,
addendums,
announcements,
article-commentaries,
book reviews,
rapid communications,
letters to the editor,
annual meeting abstracts,
conference proceedings,
calendars,
case-reports,
corrections,
discussions,
meeting-reports,
news,
obituaries,
orations,
product reviews,
hypotheses and
analyses.

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

An invitation from the publishing Mafia?

Keith S. Taber

Another sign of the challenges to academic integrity that has been the theme of several recent blogs:

I copy below the text of an email I recently received. This is a genuine message (i.e., I reproduce the text exactly as I received it.)

What I am not sure about is

is it a serious request for me to be involved in academic malpractice?
is it a scam, that seems to be a scheme to get around proper peer review, but if I respond I will soon find I am being blackmailed with a threat to reveal my being complicit in such a scheme, or
is it a joke?

It seems a lot of effort to go to if it is just a joke (the website looks like it has had some time and effort spent on it), but when I got to the organisation name at the bottom, I found am being approached by an organisation calling itself 'journals-mafia'!

"Keith S Taber
Are you an editor of the journal or a member of editorial board?
If so, we propose a big profit for you and your journal.
The profit is from 1,000 up to 10,000 dollars per a month.
It is necessary to publish articles.
The same work that you do, but you can get more money doing this with us.
My company works in the markets of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, China and Iran.
We publish a lot of articles.
There is much more demand than we can publish.
We do not have enough journals in which we can publish all the articles.
That is why we are searching more and more journals for publication every day.
We will share our profits with you.
An alternative option is to buy your journal.
If your journal does not bring you joy no longer, we will buy it.
The scheme of our work is simple:
1. The author writes an article.
2. The author pays us for publishing an article in a journal.
3. We work with the text of the article; we review and edit this article making it of excellent quality.
4. We check the quality of English language.
5. We format an article according to the requirements of a journal.
6. We send an article to the editor of the journal.
7. The article is published.
8. We share our profit with the editor of the journal.
Win – Win – Win.
All the parties are satisfied.
We work with a huge amount [sic] of articles.
We work not only with people who need a publication.
We also work with the universities and scientific organizations, which give us from 10 to 100 articles.
We have several companies.
This makes it possible not to attract the attention of scientific databases as well as controlling and regulating organizations.
We know how Scopus and Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) work.
We earn money and do not draw their attention.
More details will be provided below.
My goal is to monopolize publication market of Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. All the publications must go through my companies, through my journals or partner journals.
How will we build our joint business?
The options are possible:
1. For high ranking journals.
2. For low ranking journals.
3. For predatory journals.
A high ranking journal.
We prepare an article adhering to all journal's requirements.
The quality of the article is excellent.
We put 1 article from our region for one issue.
Thus, we provide from 1 to 5 articles for an issue (no more than one article from one country):
one is from Russia, one – from Azerbaijan, one – from China, one – from Kazakhstan, etc.
This will not cause any suspicion. Any journal is interested to publish articles from different countries.
The article is under review.
We correct and edit the article taking into the account the reviewers' comments and remarks.
The article is published.
The profit is shared.
Low ranking journals.
We prepare an article adhering to all journal's requirements.
We put several article for one issue.
If we do not want to attract attention, to work for years and to raise the journal's ranking, then we send from 1 to 15 articles for one issue (no more than three articles from one country).
All the articles should undergo the review stage.
We have our own team of reviewers (more than 100 reviewers from around the world).
We can review the articles by our reviewers.
We correct and edit the article taking into the account the reviewers' comments and remarks.
If you follow the process,
this will not cause any suspicion.
The article is published.
The profit is shared.
In this case, the editor of a journal agrees not to publish articles from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan bypassing us. All scientists of these countries pass only through us.
Profit is divided.
Predatory journals.
If you have exactly decided that you want to get a lot of money.
In this case, the journal will be removed from the Scopus base in the future.
In this case, we take the articles in hundreds or thousands.
And publish them.
In this case, the editor of a journal agrees not to publish articles from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan bypassing us. All scientists of these countries pass only through us.
Profit is divided.
Business is working like this. It is reliable and approved by time.
If you have any ideas, please, write to me.
If you are interested, please, write to me.
Additional important information.
We care not only for our reputation, but also for the reputation of our partners and clients.
We are several companies registered in different countries.
There are different kinds of activity of our companies according to official documents. It depends on the inquiries of our clients and partners.
Under individual requests, new companies can be established or existing companies registered several years ago can be used.
The purpose of invoice and the subject of the contract can be formulated individually.
We pay journals in any ways that are convenient for them: PayPal, electronic money, bank cards, bank accounts, without a contract, under a contract, SWIFT, etc.
Nataliya"

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

First published 19th May 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

The Editorial Board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology

A response to an invitation to join an editorial board for a medical imaging journal

Keith S. Taber

The invitation

On 23/04/2018 20:06, EnPress Publisher wrote:

"… We have read your recent article, "Student Conceptions of Ionic Bonding: Patterns of thinking across three European contexts" published in International Journal of Science Education. We feel that this article is of high academic value. Therefore, we would like to invite you to join the Editorial Board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology…"

The response

Thank you very much for the invitation to join the editorial board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology. This is clearly an important field, where a top quality academic journal could be of great importance.
It is an honour to be invited to join the editorial team alongside such respected colleagues as Dr. Oleg V. Gradov (Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences); Prof. Boris Arkadievich Kobrinskii (Medicine Institute of the Federal Research Center "Computer Science and Control" of the Russian Academy of Sciences and N.I. Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University); Dr. Vedat Goral (Istanbul Medipol University School of Medicine); Mr. Atef Rawhan Abdulsameea Abdulraqeb (Vladimir State University); Dr. Marzia Cottini (Niguarda Hospital); Dr. Alexander Georgiev Otsetov (Umeå University); Dr. Farzaneh Rahmani (Tehran University of Medical Sciences); Dr. Michael El Boghdady (Ninewells Hospital and Medical School); Prof. Francesco Izzo (National Cancer Institute of Naples); Prof. Vural Fidan (Yunus Emre Gov Hospital); Dr. Kaiser J. Giri (Islamic University of Science & Technology); Prof. Yung-Yao Chen (National Taipei University of Technology); Prof. Wei-Yen Hsu (National Chung Cheng University); and Mohammad Naderan (Tehran University of Medical Sciences).
Given the importance of this field, I recognise the need to ensure that the academic literature in the field is of the highest standard, and so to recruit appropriate expertise to support the editorial work of the journal. Indeed, as an editor myself, I have become very concerned about the lack of quality in the procedures adopted by some of the many new journals that are appearing ( and I have commented on this: doi:10.1039/C7RP90012K free access at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/rp/c7rp90012k#!divAbstract ). I trust that Medical Imaging Process & Technology will be adopting the highest scholarly standards in its peer review procedures, and in the choice of editorial board members to oversee the process?
I should also thank you for your kind comments about our paper in International Journal of Science Education reporting on patterns of student conceptions of the the chemistry topic of ionic bonding. It is good to know you feel this work is of high academic value. Hopefully the work will influence teaching practice in high schools. As you have taken the time to read the paper, and been so impressed, I would be very interested in knowing what aspects of the paper you felt were of most value – if you would be prepared to share your thoughts. I would imagine that you are very busy with your work on Medical Imaging Process & Technology, so I am impressed that you took the time to read our paper in the International Journal of Science Education.
I must also ask, as I am slightly at a loss to understand, what specific aspects of my scholarly work in science education led you to conclude that I would be suitable to join the editorial board of Medical Imaging Process & Technology and work alongside noted experts in that field.
Whilst it is an honour to be asked, you will appreciate that I can only give this serious consideration if persuaded that someone working in my field, with my academic background, could make a genuine and relevant contribution to the journal. It would not be a good use of my time otherwise, and, more importantly, it would not reflect well on Medical Imaging Process & Technology if it was considered by potential authors and reviewers that some members of the Editorial Board did not have sufficient expertise in the field of the journal. I am sure you are very careful in selecting potential Editorial Board members, so appreciate you must have a strong rationale for inviting me, but at the moment I do not fully understand why a scholar known for exploring aspects of teaching and learning in science would be a strong candidate to guide a journal in this somewhat different field.
I look forward to your response.
Best wishes
Keith

I await a reply…

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

First published 30th April 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

The application of Cronbach's alpha in Mechatronical Engineering

Keith S. Taber

Invitation to Join Editorial Board

"Dear …
Thank you for your message, 'Invitation to Join Editorial Board'.
I am pleased that you find my work "The Use of Cronbach's Alpha When Developing and Reporting Research Instruments in Science Education" very interesting. Thank you for your invitation to publish in 'Frontiers of Mechatronical Engineering', to be published by EnPress Publisher.
Thank you also for the invitation to join the Editorial Board of 'Frontiers of Mechatronical Engineering'. I see from your website that the scope of the journal "includes mechanical engineering, electromechanical system[s], industrial engineering, production engineering, robotics, system design, modeling, automative, nuclear engineering, nanotechnology, computer intelligence, and aerospace engineering". This is a diverse range as might be expected from a journal tackling an interdisciplinary field, yet I cannot immediately see that my own expertise would be a good fit for the journal.
Best wishes
Keith"

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

First published 1st January 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

Publish at speed, recant at leisure

Keith S. Taber

Image by InstagramFOTOGRAFIN from Pixabay

In scholarly circles it is sometimes said "Publish, or be dammed" (a variation on the 'Publish and be dammed" retort to blackmail), and there is no doubt that, generally, success in academia – when judged in such mundane terms as getting academic positions, keeping them, getting promoted – in large part requires academics to build up their publication list.

The value of peer review

Quality should obviously be more important than quantity, but that requires evaluations of the former. The peer review process that is used by most journals is far from perfect, but is said (like democracy) to be, despite its flaws, the best system we have. Quality journals depend upon rigorous peer review to ensure that articles published will be recognised within a field to be robust and significant. Peer review takes time. Some publishers pressure editors and reviewers to work to a short time scale – but there is always a fine balance: the review needs to be done carefully, and by experts – rather than either hastily, or by those who are not really qualified but will have a go because they want the reviewing on their c.v (resumé)

Authors are under pressure to publish, and publish quickly. (Indeed I am aware that recently university employees in one country were put under pressure to get published quickly even if that meant compromising where the work was published).

Peer review not only leads to rejection of substandard work, but also provides feedback on submitted work that could be published, suggesting improvements indicated. Such suggestions inevitably are somewhat subjective – but I think most editors would agree that generally the peer review process improves the quality of the final published article – even if it often delays the process by some months and requires authors to go back and do further work when they might have hoped to have moved on to the next article they want to write.

Ultimately peer review (when done carefully by qualified reviewers) means not only that there is quality control that rejects poor work, but that several people scrutinise published work, point out any mistakes missed by authors, and often suggest changes that will lead to work more likely to impress the readership and have lasting impact. As authors we should welcome rigorous peer review of our work – even if sometimes we do not agree with the criticisms of our precious writing.

Instant gratification – immediate publication

Since the advent of on-line publishing, it has become very easy to start a journal, and the number of journals out there has proliferated. (Read 'Challenges to academic publishing from the demand for instant open access to research'.) This makes it hard sometimes, especially for new scholars, to know which journals are of high quality. Many journal publishers are looking to get a competitive edge by speeding up processes. I know from my own role as an editor that it is now possible, sometimes, to get a paper from submission to publication in around a month – but this is still the exception and a quality journal will never look to speed up the process by deliberately selecting referees who are not thorough or avoiding author revisions that are indicated.

So I was rather surprised to get an invitation from a journal I was not familiar with, International Educational Scientific Research Journal, entitled 'Publish your paper in May issue' on 15th April. The idea that I could submit something and have it published two weeks later seemed unlikely if there was any kind of robust peer review process in place. However, the email suggested that the

"Last date for manuscript submission is 30th April, 2016 for 1st May, 2016 Issue".

Really?

Dubious impact factors

Of course it is quite possible that the 1st May issue may not appear till September (that would not be a first in journal publishing), but otherwise this seemed to shout "we publish anything, quality not an issue". This is a journal which charges fees to authors – and the homepage suggests that the cost depends on the length of the manuscript and (oddly) the number of authors. However the email also claimed an Impact factor of 3.606.

If I was a new scholar I would likely be very impressed by an impact factor of over 3, as I know many quality specialist journals in my field with much lower impact factors. However, visiting the webpage revealed that the impact factor has not be awarded by Thomson Reuters, the organisation used by most quality journals, but rather by 'SJIF'.

The impact factors used by top journals reflect how many times (on average) each of their published papers are cited in articles in the highly ranked journals over a period. I found the webpage of the SJIF and found that it evaluates journals on a wide range of criteria, such as number of papers published, language of papers, quality of graphics and many other things. Some of the criteria used are certainly relevant to journal quality – but this type of evaluation is not comparable to the impact factors that are recognised and used by the top academic publishers.

The academic publishing landscape is very diverse today. The possibility of open publishing, and the easy access to tools to publish internet journals, is to be welcomed – but makes it more difficult for scholars to know which journals are genuinely of quality. There is certainly no intrinsic value in a journal having slow processes and all authors welcome a speedy review and publication process. Ultimately, however, submit today, publish tomorrow is likely to mean ignored thereafter.

Read more about 'Journals and poor academic practice'

(First published 24th April 2016 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/)