Comments on: Academic spam and open access publishing

By: aag

aag — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:36:19 +0000

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!

By: ashok

ashok — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 06:26:19 +0000

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.

By: InTech book Editor

InTech book Editor — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:25:29 +0000

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;

By: Per Ola Kristensson

Per Ola Kristensson — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:39:10 +0000

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

By: Jacks

Jacks — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 00:59:53 +0000

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.

By: DublinGuy

DublinGuy — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:21:35 +0000

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.

By: Kpmitton

Kpmitton — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:03:04 +0000

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.

By: Per Ola Kristensson

Per Ola Kristensson — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:02:41 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: anon

anon — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:44:24 +0000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/31/real-cost-academic-publishing

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:44:12 +0000

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