Like Bentham [which Poynder wrote about in April 2008], SJI was brought to my attention by researchers concerned about the way in which it appears to be recruiting its editors, and seeking article submissions. The suspicion is that SJI is spamming academics in a scattergun way. Some of those who contacted me argue that it is also unclear what (if any) peer review takes place when papers are submitted....
[W]hile the company claims to have more than 100 "peer-reviewed Open Access journals for all disciplines," many of these journals don't currently appear to exist. When visitors to the site click on a link to some of the journals, for instance, they often simply get the message "Coming soon ..." (e.g. [here])....
Last year some researchers became sufficiently suspicious that they began to blog about SJI's activities....
Plutchak also pointed out that there was a lack of transparency about the ownership of SJI. "Nowhere on the website could I find any indication of who is actually behind these journals," he wrote. "There's a business address in St. Cloud, Minnesota, but no one is named." ...
To this I received a reply signed by a Professor Niaz Ahmed, who described himself as Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Mass Communications, Saint Cloud State University, and pointed me to his web site. Ahmed drew my attention to a "Fraud Alert" note that had been added to the SJI web site, and complained that SJI had become a target for misleading rumours designed to discredit it. Then, in a second message sent immediately afterwards, Ahmed accused me of not introducing myself properly, for which reason, he added, he was "inclined to believe that you are just another jealous or racist individual who is trying to spread rumours about SJI."
Shortly afterwards I noticed an additional paragraph had been added to the front page of the SJI web. This states that SJI operates "an innovative quadruple-blind review system, where the referees, authors and editors remain anonymous throughout the peer-review process." The new wording also said that, "Names of the chief editor or associate editors are not published on SJI Web site. Authors or reviewers cannot contact the editors to influence the review process deliberately or unintentionally." ...
I sent one final request asking Ahmed to confirm whether or not he was willing to speak with me. I received no reply....
Where does this leave us? Either SJI is, as Ahmed maintains, a victim of disinformation and malicious gossip, or there are genuine reasons to ask probing questions about the company's activities....
It seems to me that the key questions are these:
1. How exactly is SJI recruiting editors to its journals, and what is their role once recruited?
2. How are papers being solicited, and what exactly happens to them once they are submitted?
3. What are the merits and demerits of the quadruple-blind system that SJI says it operates?
4. Likewise, what are the merits and demerits of not making public the names of journal editors? Is there a lack of transparency in the system?
5. Why does SJI appear to have a large number of empty journals (while claiming to have over 100)? ...
I would be grateful if members of this list could help me answer the above questions....
PS: I should stress that Niaz Ahmed [of St. Cloud University] appears to have no connection whatsoever with Dr Niyaz Ahmed, an Indian-based OA advocate, and section editor for PLoS ONE.
Summary: Because it is relatively easy to start up fleets of "peer-reviewed journals" online with minimal experience, answerability, quality-control, cost, or risk, because the call for Open Access (OA) is getting stronger, because traditional journals are perceived as getting weaker, and because there is still widespread ignorance and inertia regarding the fastest and surest way of providing OA (Green OA self-archiving), there seems to be a growing "dot-gold rush" of Gold OA journal start-ups, based on spamming the research community to solicit editors, referees and authors. Needless to say, these antics are giving OA a bad name. The eloquent and insightful chronicler of the OA movement, Richard Poynder, is doing some investigative journalism on this fast-feeding frenzy and looking for help from the research community.
The SJI responses accuse Poynder of libel and racism. Both charges are gratuitous. The libel charge looks like an attempt to intimidate and the racism charge looks like an attempt to change the subject. I know Poynder's work well and have often blogged it. He's a careful, fair-minded, and professional journalist. Moreover, his original post consisted of questions without answers. SJI is not helping its cause. (Disclosure: Poynder interviewed me in October 2007.)
Update (10/24/08). SJI posted a five-point response to the questions about its peer review process.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/14/2008 09:07:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
