Thiruvananthapuram: Blogger Jeffrey Beall, a one-man force against fake academic journals, has listed Thiruvananthapuram as the hot spot of predatory academic journals with the blog listing nearly 100 such journals from a single address. The list for 2017, which had identified 1,155 suspicious or fake publishers, was posted in his blog 'Scholarly Open Access,' but was deleted mysteriously creating suspicion.
American newspaper Ottawa Citizen reported that the blog was deleted following threat from academic mafia this Sunday. The blog went blank with only the headline 'Scholarly Open Access' remaining. The blog had alleged that the titles of these Thiruvananthapuram-based journals mimicked or copied the titles of legitimate journals. These were a deliberate attempt to look legitimate when listed in the resume for promotion, said sources.
The allegation was that such fake journals charge an average processing fee of 600 dollars for an article and ensured that they were published within two to three months of submission. Indian researchers select such journals as they publish manuscripts without any peer review. The UGC had recently listed nationally and internationally reputed journals that would only be considered while preparing academic performance indictor for promotions. Such academic frauds would have been one of the reasons for the UGC to come with such a list.
This would mean that any publication outside the list would not be considered while preparing academic performance indicator, said sources. Mr Beall, an American librarian, is now the scholarly initiatives librarian at Auraria Library and an associate professor at the University of Colorado, Denver. The list of predatory academic journals prepared by Mr Beall increased from 18 in 2011 to 923 by 2016. The expression predatory publishers was coined by Mr Beall for firms which collect article processing charges and provide rapid publishing without a proper peer review process.
