Today we present six new (or newly discovered) vanity presses that we have added to the list of predatory publishers.
This site is an “institutional repository” for people who ought to be institutionalized. They accept anything, so this makes for very interesting reading; some very wacky ideas are presented here. Also included, surprisingly, are many legitimate offprints (some violating copyright). The site boasts that it sends abstracts of all submissions to major libraries via its Intellectual Archive Bulletin (ISSN 1929-1329), but it may not really exist yet– it’s not cataloged. I wrote and requested a copy. They told me that my library could subscribe to the bulletin for $200 (electronic) or $400 (print). This is misleading — the language implied that the bulletin was sent to libraries, implying that it was sent for free.
For an additional fee, you can have your submission published in their print journal, Intellectual Archive Journal (ISSN 1929-4700). To publish, you must pay a fee ranging from $20-$50 depending on length. You can also pay to get a certificate that says your deposit was made into the repository. Online-only deposits are free. Subscriptions to this journal are $700 (electronic) and $1,400 (print).
The only real value of this site is the entertainment value that the crazy articles provide. It’s worth a look, just for the laughs. This is a true scholarly vanity press.
I could hardly believe the name either. This is a brand-new operation based in India. It has half a dozen journals, but they have little content. Why the name? I’m not sure, but maybe it’s to make this start-up publisher stand out among the increasingly-crowed open-access publishing industry.
Academy & Industry Research Collaboration Center (AIRCC)
This mega-site offers dozens of journals and even more conferences. It’s based in India, but the conferences take place all over Asia. You get to pay for attending the conference and also for having your paper printed in the corresponding journal. Almost all its journal titles begin with “International Journal of … ” but in most cases, the authors are from India. If you need a couple of publications to meet your yearly minimum, this is a good place to send something you can write in a couple of days; I have a feeling they will accept it.
The “contact us” page for this bogus publisher lists addresses in the US and the UK, but it’s really based in Pakistan. The publisher states,
“MASAUM Network is an international, independent publisher [sic] for high-quality journals, proceedings, books, e-books from all areas of science such as Continuum Books, engineering, technology, humanities, social sciences, management science and medical sciences, etc.”
They charge £200 for accepted papers.
Centre For Info Bio Technology (CIBTech)
Each week, we discover at least one, a new open-access publisher from India. This one offers 16 journals and promises a quick turnaround time for article submissions.
The publisher states, “CIBTech is always committed to maintaining the highest standard of workings whatever project it undertakes and work with never to compromise attitude.” Too bad their commitment to high standards doesn’t apply to the text on their website.
Pelagia Research Library
I cannot tell where this publisher is based; their “contact us” page only gives email addresses (but the author fees are stated in dollars and rupees, so it’s probably Indian). It lists five journals. The website has a sloppy yet bare appearance; this site was probably set up in a matter of hours. The journals all started in 2010 or 2011. One of the journals is the European Journal of Experimental Biology. I think it’s deceptive and unethical to name a journal after a region that it’s not published in.
