New wave of "science" journals

[Loki]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

I'll write more about this tomorrow, but the main point here is that there has recently been a rise in open-access science journals, most of whom are a mockery to the very idea of science and peer review. To what extent is science itself getting devalued, especially in parts of the third world where these journals are particularly popular, as long as these journals are out there?

[GGT]

One might have expected credible peer review at the Journal of Natural Pharmaceuticals. It describes itself as "a peer reviewed journal aiming to communicate high quality research articles, short communications, and reviews in the field of natural products with desired pharmacological activities." The editors and advisory board members are pharmaceutical science professors at universities around the world.

Really? I don't know about you, but "natural pharmaceuticals" screams herbal therapy, vitamin supplements, and homeopathic remedies. Those things aren't studied, evaluated, or endorsed by any reputable scientific agency (FDA, CDC, NIH)....no matter who's named on their "editorial and advisory board".

I asked Beall how he got into academic crime-fighting. The problem "just became too bad to ignore," he replied. The population "exploded" last year, he said. Beall counted 59 predatory open-access publishers in March 2012. That figure had doubled 3 months later, and the rate has continued to far outstrip DOAJ's growth.

Why do you think that happened and was overlooked? Fees and profits, sloppy quality control, flawed administration?

The fictitious authors are affiliated with fictitious African institutions.

Another I thought there was an established list of reputable academic or scientific institutions. Isn't that a simple Google or Wikipedia search?

But even when editors and bank accounts are in the developing world, the company that ultimately reaps the profits may be based in the United States or Europe. In some cases, academic publishing powerhouses sit at the top of the chain.

That should piss off any graduate student, or academic professional, who's told they must "publish" as part of their advanced degree or teaching position.

The most basic obligation of a scientific journal is to perform peer review, arXiv founder Ginsparg says. He laments that a large proportion of open-access scientific publishers "clearly are not doing that." Ensuring that journals honor their obligation is a challenge that the scientific community must rise to. "Journals without quality control are destructive, especially for developing world countries where governments and universities are filling up with people with bogus scientific credentials," Ginsparg says.

Sounds about right. Any 'scientific journal' should be able to show their articles have been 'peer reviewed', and thoroughly checked before publication. Having said that, we also know that journals in the developed world, with good reputations for quality control, and universities with valid scientific credentials, have had to remove some published 'studies' that were falsified after the fact. (A Lancet "study" correlating childhood vaccinations with Autism is one recent example.)

[Dreadnaught]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

I'll write more about this tomorrow, but the main point here is that there has recently been a rise in open-access science journals, most of whom are a mockery to the very idea of science and peer review. To what extent is science itself getting devalued, especially in parts of the third world where these journals are particularly popular, as long as these journals are out there?

It's the Wikifisting of the academic community. Then again, do you think the academic community is incenting this with its snootiness and its mad demands for non-stop publishing?

[Loki]

It's the Wikifisting of the academic community. Then again, do you think the academic community is incenting this with its snootiness and its mad demands for non-stop publishing?

This is only an issue in bottom-tier universities (and ones in the third world). Tenure committees actually go through where someone publishes their articles here, and publishing in a shitty journal will actually hurt you more than not publishing at all. The problem is there are a lot of crappy universities out there where the faculty is itself clueless when it comes to publishing and scientific standards, and lets crap like this go through. I'm guessing that more or less tenure-track faculty in these universities are realizing this and are turning to these fake journals. Or they must just be so stupid that they think there's anything valid to publishing a non-peer reviewed article with a for-pay publishing model.

I should also note that while the pressure in the social sciences is to publish, the main pressure in the hard sciences is to get external funding. Publishing certainly helps, but it's not what makes or breaks a career.

[wiggin]

Before I read the article, I was going to defend the high end of the open access market, specifically PLoS ONE, but I see the author was honest about them. I think it boils down to knowing what's trash and what isn't. No one is really getting fooled by the rubbish open access journals, but the top tier open access journals are quite decent. I also think that there should be a lot more room in the hard sciences for publishing data in progress (and data in full) - this has gotten traction with physics with arXiv and with sequencing data in biology (as well as large datasets in biostatistics), but it needs more widespread acceptance elsewhere. There's so much data out there that isn't seeing the light of day, and open access publishing is probably part of the answer. Science, Nature, and Cell won't publish a paper full of largely negative results, but an open access journal might.