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 TeamThank 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 wishesKeith
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.
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