I’ve added the following two publishers to my list of questionable publishers:
These publishers appear to be related to the Canadian Center of Science and Education, which I added earlier to this list.
Sciedu is a not-so-clever combination of Sci and edu. It publishes 17 journals in the areas of biology, economics, and social sciences. One of its journals is the World Journal of English [sic] Language. (I think it should be World Journal of the English Language.)
It uses the Open Journal Systems software as its platform, making it look more professional than it really is.
The Bioscience Research & Educational Institute is not so much an institute as it is a predatory publisher. It publishes 12 journals. This publisher uses the initialism BRET, which means Bioscience Research & Educational Trust.
Its main page states that its mission is “Working for the future generation.” Is there only one? Looking at the PDFs of its articles, it uses a logo that closely resembles Elsevier’s logo (see image).
The copied logo of the Bioscience Research & Educational Institute.
All of these publishers operate out of India with some connections to Canada. I can’t establish exactly what the connections are; the operation is secretive. For example, the BRET “Contact Us” page is merely a web form. The site does list one contact email which is bioscience58@gmail.com.
Of course, one of the most prominent links on two of these publishers main pages is “Payment of publication fee.”
The Sciedu journal: Business and Management Research – uses OJS, has ISSNs, RSS feeds, claims double-blind system for peer-review, claims to be indexed in ProQuest and elsewhere, has 15 papers in V1 No1, and has an extensive international editorial team (http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/bmr/about/editorialTeam). I have no way of knowing if it is ‘predatory’ or not. If it is, then it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell.
Sciedu seems to automatically harvest publications in its area. My article on Open Educational Resources was published yesterday in the European Journal of Education. Today I got an email from “Susan Sun”:
“Dear Ilkka Tuomi,
I am Susan Sun from International Journal of Higher Education, which is a printed and online scholarly journal, peer-reviewed, published by Sciedu Press, Canada. I have had an opportunity to read your paper entitled “Open Educational Resources and the Transformation of Education”. Through your works, I know you are an expert in this field. You are sincerely invited to submit manuscripts at any time. Your submission will make an important contribution to the quality of this journal. … Article publication fee 300.00 USD…”