Scholarly Open Access

Don’t be fooled by this publisher.

The gold rush continues with IBIMA Publishing. By “gold rush,” I refer to the rush to set up gold (author-pays) open-access publishing sites that can make their owners easy money.

This publisher has started out with a fleet of 59 journals. The titles cover the fields of business, social sciences, computer science, life sciences, and several others. Some of the journals lack any content, and the owner is incentivizing the submission of manuscripts by temporarily waiving author fees for some of the journals.

 IBIMA is a one-man operation (there are many such operations in gold open-access publishing), and in this case the man is Khalid S. Soliman. Soliman’s website describes him as a great businessman who gives seminars and who does adjunct work at various colleges. Unfortunately, he has not responded to the emails we sent him asking for information and clarification about his publishing business. What kind of businessman fails to respond to inquiries?

The business is located in the United States. The site gives its location as 34 E. Germantown Pike, #327, Norristown, PA 19401, but this location is a UPS store. So, the real location is secret (it’s probably Soliman’s house or apartment), and Soliman furtively uses a mailbox in the UPS store as his business mailing address. What kind of professional business practice is this? What’s he trying to hide?

IBIMA means International Business Information Management Association. It’s not really an association; it’s really just a business that wants to make money off of scholars. The business also organizes several annual conferences in exotic locations.

The website is filled with grammatical and typographical errors.

Do scholars want to publish in journals whose publisher’s mailing address is a UPS store and whose spam email and website are full of grammatical and typographical errors? I think not.

Hat tip: Daphne Ann Plaut

Appendix 1. A spam email sent out by IBIMA Publishing. The errors in the email are those of IBIMA. Note that the email is unsigned.

Dear Prof.,

We are writing to invite you ur quality research effort as a research paper/work in progress article to “Journal of Virology and Microbiology” (JVM), a full double blind peer-reviewed journal.
“Journal of Virology and Microbiology,” is published by IBIMA Publishing, USA, an open access academic publisher* well known in “Business and Management” fields and advancing in Sciences areas.

The journal has a distinguished editorial board composed of leading “Virology and Microbiology” researchers from around the world. A current list of the journal’s editors can be found at: http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JVM/editorial.html

Manuscripts should be submitted to: <jvm@ibimapublishing.com>. Manuscripts submitted in response to this invitation will be FREE of the article processing charges. So, simply reply to this e-mai c120101n) stays in the subject line. Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, it will undergo language copyediting, typesetting, and reference validation in order to provide the highest publication quality possible.
*Open access journals are those that provide immediate and free access of all published full-text articles to interested readers around the world.  Open access publishing (OAP) can provide several benefits to participating authors.  It helps in maximizing the dissemination and impact of research by making it available to all readers worldwide.  Further, recently published literature suggests that OAP increases the chance of more citations of the published work, which in turn can be translated into more recognition of research.  More importantly, OAP promotes and encourages cumulative research and knowledge building worldwide by providing easy, enhanced, and accelerated access to research.

Please do not hesitate to contact us sh ns.

Best regards,
–
Editorial Team
Journal of Virology and Microbiology,

IBIMA Publishing
U.S.A.
http://www.ibimapublishing.com/ 

Appendix 2: List of IBIMA Publishing journals as of August 1, 2012 

• Communications of the IBIMA
• IBIMA Business Review
• Journal of Human Resources Management Research
• Journal of Administrative Sciences and Technology
• Journal of Marketing Research and Case Studies
• Journal of EU Research in Business
• Journal of Organizational Management Studies
• Journal of Southeast Asian Research
• Journal of Supply Chain and Customer Relationship Management
• The MENA Journal of Business Case Studies
• International Journal of Real Estate & Construction Management
• Journal of North African Research in Business
• Communications of the IBIMA
• IBIMA Business Review
• Journal of Administrative Sciences and Technology
• Journal of African Research in Business & Technology
• Journal of Information Assurance & Cybersecurity
• Journal of Outsourcing and Organizational Information Management
• Journal of Organizational Knowledge Management
• Journal of Innovation Management in Small and Medium Enterprises
• Journal of Innovation and Business Best Practice
• Journal of Accounting and Auditing: Research & Practice
• Journal of Economics Studies and Research
• European Journal of Banking Studies (forthcoming)
• Journal of Islamic Banking and Business Research
• Journal of Eastern Europe Research in Business and Economics
• Journal of Financial Studies and Research
• Journal of Research in Industrial Organization
• Journal of EU Research in Business
• Journal of e-Government Studies and Best Practices
• Journal of e-health Management
• Journal of Electronic Banking Systems
• Journal of e-Learning and Higher Education
• Journal of Cloud Computing
• Journal of Internet and e-business Studies
• Journal of Internet Social Networking and Virtual Communities
• Journal of Mobile Technologies, Knowledge and Society
• Journal of Enterprise Resource Planning Studies
• Journal of Southeast Asian Research
• The MENA Journal of Business Case Studies
• Journal of North African Research in Business (forthcoming)
• Journal of African Research in Business & Technology
• Journal of Eastern Europe Research in Business and Economics
• Journal of EU Research in Business
• European Journal of Banking Studies (forthcoming)
• International Journal of Interactive worlds
• Journal of Cloud Computing
• Journal of Software and Systems Development
• Journal of Information Assurance & Cybersecurity
• Advances in Stem Cells
• Advances in Cancer Research & Treatment
• Research in Endocrinology (forthcoming)
• Research in Immunology: An International Journal
• Pediatrics: Research & Reports
• Journal of Virology and Microbiology
• Plastic Surgery: An International Journal
• Research in Neurology: An International Journal Pediatrics Research International Journal
• International Journal of Veterinary Medicine Research
• Research in Nanotechnology
• International Journal of Biofuels

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