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Academic spam and open access publishing

Judging by how much spam I get nowadays it seems academic open access publishing is lucrative.

I keep getting targeted spam from Bentham, Hindawi, InTech, and others. The strategy seems to be to mine reputable conference and journal papers for email addresses and then use them for targeted spam.

I have now received five emails from open access publisher InTech about a book chapter based on a previously published paper. These guys never give up! This is an excerpt from the last one:

Dear Dr. Kristensson,

We apologize for contacting you again on the matter of your nomination to contribute to the book named in the title of this email, but since we haven’t received an answer from you, we are taking the liberty of contacting you again (you may have been busy or our previous emails may have ended up in your email filters). However, this is the last email you will receive from us. If you can find time, please reply to our previous email which is below:

My name is MSc Iva Lipovic and I am contacting you regarding a new InTech book project under the working title “Speech Technologies”, ISBN: 978-953-307-152-7.

This book will be published by InTech – an Open Access publisher covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine.

You are invited to participate in this book project based on your paper “Automatic Selection of Recognition Errors by Respeaking the Intended Text”, your publishing history and the quality of your research. However, we are not asking you to republish your work, but we would like you to prepare a new paper on one of the topics this book project covers.

Why on earth would I spend time and effort to write a book chapter for a random individual I have never heard of and who doesn’t seem to have any credentials whatsoever in the field? And who reads these book chapters? And what exactly is the point of an open access “book chapter”? Sounds like a web page to me. With the exception I have to pay InTech plenty of money to put it up. I might as well just make the text available on the web myself.

Another open access publisher that likes to send spam is Hindawi. However, news to me was that Hindawi now spams on behalf of EURASIP, an organization I thought was reputable (until now):

Dear Dr. Kristensson,

I am writing to invite you to submit an article to “EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing,” which provides a rapid forum for the dissemination of original research articles as well as review articles related to the theory and applications of audio, speech, and music processing.

EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing is published using an open access publication model, meaning that all interested readers are able to freely access the journal online at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/asmp/contents.html without the need for a subscription.

Another example is Bentham who wants me to write a review on random patents based on keyword searches (the weirdest concept I have heard of so far for a journal):

Dear Dr. Kristensson,

Bentham Science Publishers has launched a series of innovative
journals publishing review articles on recent patents in major
therapeutic areas of drug discovery as well as biotechnology,
nanotechnology, engineering, computer science and material science
disciplines. Please refer to Bentham Science’s website at
http://www.pat-comp-sci.org/AllTitles for further details.

An exciting journal entitled “Recent Patents on Computer Science
(CSENG)” was launched in January 2008. This journal publishes review
articles written by experts on recent patents in the field of Computer
Science. Please visit the journal‘s website at
http://www.compscieng.org for the Editorial Board, sample issue,
abstracts of recent issues and other details.

Recent Patents on Computer Science (CSENG) is indexed in Genamics
JournalSeek, Compendex,Scopus

If you would like to submit a review article to the journal on an
important patent area in Computer Science, then please provide us the
title of your proposed article and a tentative date of submission at
editorial@compscieng.org. Moreover in your reply, could you please
suggest some specific keywords, keyword phrases related to your topic,
so that detailed patents may be sent to you for the preparation of
your manuscript.

I keep wondering who is actually editing and reviewing all these journals and books. While they keep spamming me for paper submissions (and lucrative fees after they have accepted the papers), I haven’t received any invitations to do any reviews.

79 Responses to “Academic spam and open access publishing”

  1. Brian says:

    How about setting up a blog to list the academics who publish in such journals?

  2. […] spam researchers for manuscripts for the most ridiculous journals and “edited books” (here, here and here). The peer-review and quality-control appears to be minimal and the publication fees […]

  3. Kpmitton says:

    I just look at the lists of editorial reviewers. When a large percentage seem to be ppost docs or scientists without their own lab, beware! I started reviewing papers in my particular subject as a post doc, with demonstrated results in my field, but no one put me on a review board.

    Kpmitton
    assoc. Prof.

  4. DublinGuy says:

    Intech’s prime motivation is money. They are churning out ‘books’ at an alarming rate – 1,763 so far, and each book chapter is around 30 chapters or so. They charge each contributing author(s) $840 per chapter. Based on these numbers they’re revenue so far is over $33 million. Let that number sink in.

    These ‘book’s have no credibility. They call them books to lure in academics so they can claim a book chapter on their resume. They don’t care about the review process since readers aren’t going to be paying to read these ‘book’s anyway.

  5. Jacks says:

    As a PhD student in his final year, I can tell you that Intech computer science/engineer books are reasonable.

    The robotics and biometrics books in particular are good. I can’t comment on other areas as I am not knowledgeable in those fields.

    DublinGuy, $33 million is a lot, I agree. How much do Elsevier earn from subscribers? Also, From what I read, Intech dont charge authors from third world countries.

  6. […] for submissions and demand high fees to publish manuscripts in dodgy books and journals (here, here, here and […]

  7. InTech book Editor says:

    I am a Senior Researcher and I have worked as Editor for several books published by InTech. I had the same initial doubts about this or other publishing houses sending emails inviting scientists to join the books. However, I decided to collaborate with them as an opportunity to spread my work and learn more about other teams’ work. Also, InTech may be annoying, but is not related to malpractice or fake peer-review (as far as I know).

    As Editor of these books, I was very careful to provide the same level of revieweing that I do for any other SCI journal. Most of the authors followed my comments to improve the quality of their chapters, and the ones who didn’t were rejected as in any SCI journl. In fact, I rejected several chapters (causing a $850 loss for InTech with each rejection) and the publishers never complained and remove the chapters as I requested. Most of the authors were not top-names in their fields, but their contributions were reasonably well done. All things considered, I am pleased with the quality of the contributions, the editorial process, and the quality of the final printed book. I think they are honest and useful contributions to the field. Also, being free for download also makes them useful for researchers with little resources. In conclusion, I am not ashamed to have my name on those books, and I would be happy to Editor more books if InTech asks me again.

    My advice if you get these invitatios and you are interestes is simple: 1) check the Editor publishing record and contact him/her to know how the review process will be carried out; 2) submit your research that is fine but not cutting-edge: Think about these books as having the same level as a conference Proceedings; 3) publish with InTech if you have money that you don’t need for your research;

  8. ashok says:

    sir, i am a junior liver transplant surgeon and contributing to three chapters on behalf of my professor in the book “hepatic surgery”. I have gone through the editor’s profile who is editor of this book. The editor of this book is really renowned surgeon and has had many scientific publications and he is also a famous surgeon in his country. Also, many authors who are contributing are from japan and USA. I think the people who left comments about the intech created doubts..but as i went through contributing author’s histories, they all are renowned in the foeld of surgery. As i am publishing the chapters in this book, just want to know how much impact it carries? is their called the impact factor? anyways again mentioning you, the book name is “hepatic surgery” & wil be published in november. My professor himself is chief of high volume liver transplant center in taiwan. so i know it must be a great opportunity.

  9. aag says:

    Dear Ashok, your line “i am contributing to three chapters on behalf of my professor” illustrates an important side of this problem. Soliciting ghost-writing from underlings is scientific misconduct, and your Professor should be ashamed. However, this kind of malpractice is so common in many cultures that it doesn’t even raise eyebrows – and you obviously do not feel as a victim! It is exactly because of these practices that the lists of names on Intech’s (and other predatory publishers’) books mean nothing!

  10. Arkog says:

    Well, let’s face it, nowadays most of science on earth is done by Ph.D. students and Post-docs, not by professors, so why should the “working-class” of science be denied the chance to have their part of the cake if they are totally capable of writting good reviews in their own field?

    I haven’t contributed to any of those books even if I was asked several times. I guess that I have the same reluctant reaction as most of you when I get those invitations: who is behind the book, what are the review standards, etc. But sincerely I don’t think we should bring the discussion into the traditional hierarchical status issue omnipresent in the scientific culture. Who says that a journal is reputable or not? Usually themselves. Nature calls itself a reputable journal and scientists just believe it and go with the wind. Why? because Nature is a bussiness, and they know that calling themselves reputable is good for their bussiness. But sincerely, there are way many papers in Nature that would have never been published if the authors wouldn’t have been affiliated to a “reputable” university. And who knows how many excellent papers have been rejected by Nature only because the authors were not affiliated to Harvard, Oxford or to whatever other “traditionally reputed” universities. And I never submitted a paper to Nature, so no, this is not the comment of some frustrated individual.

    The open access model is very new and we all have to learn to live with it. Mistakes will happen and many will try to take advantage of the system on the road. But I hope that in the end good science will benefit of the model, inpependently of the “social status” of the authors and the institutions they work for. They way science is done today is different to how it was 30-50 years ago and I hope that a quality-driven status criteria will overcome the name-driven criteria.

    Best.

  11. Fake and Bogus Review in Hindawi Publishing Corporation. says:

    From the Blog:
    http://fakeconferences.blogspot.com

    Fake and Bogus Review in Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Junk Hindawi Journals. They have ON-OFF Review. Pass or Reject. If your paper has many mathematical equations and graphics, then HINDAWI Fake Journals will publish it immediately, but you will be called to pay a Publication Fee from 400 USD to 2000 USD.
    Fake and Bogus Review in Hindawi Publishing Corporation. Junk Hindawi Journals.

    Some colleagues received this SPAM from HINDAWI. Actually HINDAWI Journals do not have any real review process. They have ON-OFF Review. Pass or Reject. If your paper has many mathematical equations and graphics, then HINDAWI Fake Journals will publish it immediately, but you will be called to pay a Publication Fee from 400 USD to 2000 USD. These Bogus Journals sent million of spam, junk email everyday. Avoid any relation with Hindawi. Do not serve as member in their fake committees. Actually, most of the members in their Editorial boards are without their knowledge. Do not review papers in these Fake and Bogus Journals. Another blog reporting Hindawi Fake Journals’ Review is this http://netdriver.blogspot.com/2009/05/hindawi-is-complete-non-english-bogus.html

    A sample of a Hindawi bogus email announcement is this:

    I am writing to invite you to submit an article to Advances in Aerospace Engineering which is a fast track peer-reviewed journal for original research articles as well as review articles related to all aspects of industrial engineering. The average review time for the ISRN series of journals is 14 days from the point of submission until a final decision has been reached.

    Advances in Aerospace Engineering is published using an open access publication model, meaning that all interested readers are able to freely access the journal online at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aae/ without the need for a subscription, and authors retain the copyright of their work. All manuscripts that are submitted to the journal during October 2013 will not be subject to any article processing charges.

    The journal has a distinguished Editorial Board with extensive academic qualifications, ensuring that the journal maintains high scientific standards and has a broad international coverage. A current list of the journal’s editors can be found http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aae/

    Manuscripts should be submitted to the journal online at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aae/
    Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, it will undergo language copyediting, typesetting, and reference validation in order to provide the highest publication quality possible.

    Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the journal.

    Best regards,
    Editorial Office
    Advances in Aerospace Engineering
    Hindawi Publishing Corporation
    http://www.hindawi.com

  12. Stefania says:

    I am in the second year of PhD and just received 2 offeres to publish of course on my own budget. If I depose so much effort in research and try to write something pertinent where is my reward? No incentive?
    this world is so messed up! I appreciate so much this blog.

  13. NIck says:

    Hello All!

    I have to mention that reputed journals also sometime publish low quality, plagiaristic or even computer-generated articles. It is well known and many examples can be found in internet! Moreover, due to long review time the safety of new ideas are not guaranteed in the reputed publishers. Your paper may be rejected after several months of peer review consideration in a reputed journal and suddenly someone else can publish “independently” the same ideas. Arxiv.com and fast publishing journals can prevent it effectively. Therefore we must think before making such statements that because of money the fast publishers publish mostly low quality papers. Many reputed journals also publish low quality papers once fee is made. It is not a problem when a low quality paper is published in a reputed journal, but it is a real problem when a high quality paper is rejected in the reputed journal.

  14. Zolitu says:

    Hindawi journals are fake journals of the worst kind. They do not have Editor-in-Chief. Secretariats (some girls in Egypt) are authorized to review papers.
    They have a fake address in USA to cheat people. Do not trust Hindawi. They have retract many papers. Hindawi is really a junk publisher. Hindawi also accept very easily rejected papers from conferences. Stay away from this academic-commercial house: Hindawi. It is fake and bogus.

  15. Mary says:

    If you believe that a book chapter is considered to be peer reviewed publication, then you need to wake up. No one reviewing promotion cases at universities or research institutions considers book chapters or book editorships as a peer-reviewed activity. I agree with the previous poster that these should be used to get your research out to the general public and not to promote your career. But who said that educating the public and letting people know what you think about your scientific field in an open access format isn’t also a worthwhile duty of a publicly-funded scientist. This way, open-access journals perform a very real and important function. They provide a quick and direct route to the public sphere for scientists that are used to talking to each other (through established journals or conferences). As long as you understand the role that open-access chapters and books (like InTech) plays, then it is a legitimate form of publication. Peer-reviewed publication also has its place — it just shouldn’t be all-consuming for us scientists.

  16. alex says:

    I have one question if it is a fake journal then why it is SCIE journal and available in Thompson Reuters.

  17. Robert Harrison says:

    There is no right or wrong regarding these new open access journals and book publishers. Some of them have wheat within the chaff. For example Hindawi does have some niche journals with decent impact factors.
    For years, science publishing has been dominated by the big guys, and things were economically comfortable until journals came on-line and open access started. Now it is competition time!

    As a scientist you can always judge the usefulness and dissemination of your work by tracking your own citations (not just the journal impact factor). If these new online publishing outfits meet your expectations then that is fine. If you strive only ever to publish in Nature or Science, that is also fine.

  18. Kallol Bhattacharya says:

    I just received a chapter auothership request from Intech. I have had similar requests earlier. My problem is- why do I have to pay for contributing a book chapter? It is the author who needs to be paid. Or is it that the authors need to pay to have their substandard articles included in the book?
    Hence every time I receive such invitations, my scientific ego feels a jolt! It simply means that ‘YOU ARE SUBSTANDARD BUT WE CAN ELEVATE YOU TO THE ELITE CLUB (?) IF YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY THE FEES!’

  19. Beni says:

    To Kallol: They don’t ask you to write a chapter because they want to bring you into an elite class… They just want your money and the end result is not a publication which raises the quality of your CV, just the opposite. It’s just like an ordinary publishing house: you can get to a printing house, give them some hundreds/thousands dollars and they’ll “print” you anything you want and you’ll have a book. That’s not a publication. A publication is when your work has been reviewed by some people with more experience than you.

    If the big guys (Springer, etc) ask you to write a book then that’s a publication. They won’t charge you anything and they’ll give you annual checks as percentage from the sales.

    Paying for publishing should always ring a bell… You should always send your research to confirmed journals who won’t charge you. If you can’t do this, publishing your work online is better than paying someone to do it.

  20. David Bogod says:

    Here is their latest to me, and my reply.

    Dear Dr. Bogod,
    This is a follow up email regarding your invitation to write a chapter for a new Open Access book on “Obstetrics,” edited by Dr. Hassan Salah Abduljabbar.
    This book will be an Open Access publication and all chapters will be available online for free and unlimited download, increasing their visibility and scientific impact. To allow for this, a payment of an Article Processing Charge of 690 EUR will be required for all accepted chapters.
    If you are interested in participating, register and submit your chapter proposal in the next few days: http://www.intechopen.com/welcome/3aefe592c3fae904d7003bfd5596fefb/david.bogod@me.com
    We look forward to hearing from you.
    InTech – open science | open minds

    Dear InTech
    Sorry, do I understand you correctly? You want ME to write a chapter for YOUR textbook and for ME to pay YOU 690 Euros for the privilege?

    I like your business model and am tempted to try it out myself, so I’ll make a counter-suggestion. I am looking for someone to dig my garden, mow my grass and re-paint the outside of my house. This will greatly increase your visibility in the Nottinghamshire area of the UK and, to allow for this, a payment of £500 will be required if you accept this post.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    InSane – open mouthed | open wallet

  21. Arkob says:

    Well, I too received many such invitations from Intech. However, I found that many well known reputed authors are also submitting a chapter in Intech. The problem is that they are taking a lot of money for a chapter where you have to pay for publishing your own work. I believe open access journals or publisher charge too much for a single paper. Springer and Elsevier charge around 2500USD or something like that to publish a paper in open access and sometime we do pay from our own project/pocket. I guess Springer or Elsevier do not spam for papers or book chapters because they are now reputed publisher and we uplifted their reputation. What if we stop sending good research work in Springer and Elsevier and publish in other open acces like Intech. Its just a business and nothing else. Your research shall come out and accessible to whole world in whatever journal. If your work is good enough it will be appreciated no matter which journal you publish.

  22. F. says:

    Hello,

    I accepted and published a chapter in one of the intechopen books. Finally my institution didn’t pay anything and they will not. I received an email asking for payment, otherwise they’ll contact to legal department. Should I do anyting or are they just threatening?

    Thanks and Regards

  23. Innocent says:

    Dr Kristensson should also not ignore the fact that there is also some unhealthy discrimination in the publishing of some so called high impact journals. I have submitted journals where the paper was rejected on the basis of excuses like “the reviewer says the paper was too difficult to understand” I thought the paper should be reviewed by experts in the field? I once submitted a paper on “control on a sphere” incidentally the editor was someone who has also done work control on the sphere using an alternative approach. Even though my approach was clearly different, effective and has other advantages, it was rejected on the basis of flimsy excuses. I suspected he gave it to one his masters students to do the review. I wasn’t even allowed to defend my concepts. Why don’t you let intech be. Soon, the quality of work and citations will justify the publications. Good people are publishing there.

  24. Peter says:

    Dear Per Ola Kristensson

    Very interesting to read indeed! I have also seen the sudden increase in spam offers, to be invited speaker at conferences or to write book chapters.

    More worrying is that I have seen a gradual increase in the proficiency of the offers, where a few years ago it seemed all to be on random subjects, now it relates to topics of interest of mine, such that I have published articles in the field or that I have posted related material on the web.

    If a smart enough algorithm would inspect all my work that is accessible online, and make a request regarding my work topics for a seemingly relevant book or conference, I may not even be able to tell if it is real or if it is spam. In the end, does it even make a difference?

    In fact, a researcher recently reached out to me to get my permission to reprint material, and I didn’t know, still don’t know, if it was a real person or not.

    Coincidentally, I am currently writing a book on the topic of automated chatbots being introduced into the world of academical open access journals with the title: “Who am I talking to? Passing the Turing test in scientific transactions” It seems to me that your observations would be valuable to put some color on the experiences of a researcher exposed to automated spam. Would you be interested in writing a chapter in this book. Of course, you retain all copyrights.

    Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

    Cordially,
    Peter

  25. koi says:

    I get dozens of such book chapter invitations every day, most of them mercifully ending in my Spam folder. These are all predatory outfits (often run from Third World countries, usually India) and work by appealing to the vanity of those who should know better.

    Guys – having a chapter in a place like this not only does nothing for your career, it is a WARNING SIGN that says ‘stay away’ to those with any understanding of your field. Don;t waste your money and reputation.

  26. Dr. Leo Urbiola says:

    I have also been invited to propose a chapter subject for a booked edited by a renowned professor of a US University. In the process of investigating how serious is the InTech publishing house, I found this announcement from SAGE.

    https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/node/1008902

    It tells about the relevance of the InTech journals. I would like to know points of views of people in this blog.

    Thank you in advance.

  27. Markus says:

    This is the information Intechopen provided on their editor of the book “Mood Disorders”. – Prof. Dr. Nese Kocabasoglu CV Professor Doctor Nese Kocabasoglu has been born in 1990 in Istanbul, Turkey. She graduated from Besiktas Ataturk Deneme High School in 1997 and from Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty in 1983. She completed her mandatory medical service in Mersin, Turkey from 1984 to 1986. –

    What kind of serious publisher would allow for such mistakes in the Editor’s bio – Born in 1990, graduated from high school in 1997!!! and then graduated from Medical Faculty in 1983!!!!

    Is there anyone in IntechOpen who reads anything before they publish it.

    What would be the reaction if e.g. Elsevier would provide this nonsense as a biography of the Editor?!!

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