What is Beall’s list?
Jeffry Beall, who compiled this list, is named Beall’s list. He was a librarian at the University of Colorado
The reality of Beall’s list of Predatory Journals and Publishers
Here we have made an honest attempt to clarify Beall’s list of predatory journals, which has been closed itself in Jan 2017. Things are changed constantly, and any blog stating the status of any journal/publisher in 2017 can not be applicable in the current year.
Please go through the following facts before concluding anything. Based on such unrealistic old data, one should not defame any journal/publisher
1. The one link (https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/; no owner declared for this website) citing old data has been copied from the Blog of the Beall’s List. This blog (web.archive.org) has already been inactive (Last updated January 9, 2017) due to its non-authenticity and misleading information, so it is not of any importance.
Second, you can see the statement on the link, which says, “This is a list of possibly predatory journals. The kernel for this list was extracted from the archive of Beall’s list at web.archive.org. It will be updated as new information or suggested edits are submitted or found by the maintainers of this site.” The word possibly explains that the list is not authentic and the source itself is not confident about the information they have put on this link. Once again, it is to inform that the archive of Beall’s list at web.archive.org was last updated on January 9, 2017.
2. Another link (https://beallslist.net/; no owner declared for this website) is also a copy of Blog of the Beall’s List. On this website, anyone can see the statement given, which says “This is an archived version of the Beall’s list – a list of potential predatory publishers created by a librarian Jeffrey Beall. We will only update links and add notes to this list.” So it is evident that both of these links only report the old data and as such no updates will be available in Beall’s list, hence non-countable in the present and future.
How to decide?
Please visit these sources before making any decision. Eye opening information is here.
http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1500
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/12/roy-tennant-digital-libraries/bealls-bile/
…….Many more are on the internet.
Historical facts of Beall’s List
Facts about Beall’s list: On search and discussion in various scientific communities, email communication amongst Editors of multiple journals and publication houses, and reviewing through available information on the internet, a few facts have been found that we felt to share. One should go through for clarification regarding this Blog of Beall’s list.
Mr. Beall is not a scientific person and he has included many journals in his list.
This blog is based on the views of an individual. Some reputed journals and publishers with good indexing and publication track record are also listed in the blog. Some journals with ISI Thomson reuters/Clarivate impact factors are also listed, along with some low quality journals.
All the reputed content aggregators and indexes such as Scopus, ISI Thomson/Clarivate (having hundreds of scientists in their editorial panel) evaluate the journal for its quality and sustainability before including a journal to their database. Therefore, indexing in a reputed database confirms the integrity of a journal.
One thing is clear that this list is not worth giving any importance.
Do you really believe Beall’s list?
It has many SCOPUS indexed journals.
Here we have quoted one example of communication of email between one of the publishers and the librarian. Please go through it. This information can be clearly found on Name of your journal is listed in the Bealls’ list – Support for Open Access Publishing (wordpress.com).
“Well, we had contacted that librarian to remove our name from his site but he has two reasons for that: First is our journals cover Ayurveda (Indian traditional Medicine) which he says is pseudo-science and he mailed us with same words (if you still do not trust our words, we shall forward you his email, you may read by yourself) and second point is he demands hefty amount to remove the name which is unaffordable for us. The person is behind small developing countries based publishers and mainly Open-access”.
“In response to our plea to remove the name of the journal, Frontiers in Bioscience, Beall cites “Freedom of speech” as his refuge while his defamation by listing the name of journals on his list has had clearcut impact on faculty of universities who are trying to submit articles for publication in the journal, as dean’s of several medical school ban submission of articles by their faculty to a journal that exists on Beall’s list.”
Beall’s list of open access publishers include publishers that are not inherently open access and while Beall was contacted to remove the name of Frontiers in Bioscience, Beall responded not to be contacted. Beall lists a plea committee on his page (http://scholarlyoa.com/other-pages/appeals/); however, he is not even responsive to allowing the plea to be submitted to such a committee. Beall’s assertion is that he publishes his reviews as a form of “free speech” and his reviews are similar to other reviews. However, in no circumstance a reviewer does not publish the reasoning for the conclusions that are drawn.
Moreover, if the intent of this list is to inform journals of their predatory action(s), then, he would give the journals the opportunity to rectify the problems that he finds to be predatory in nature. However, he neither contacts the journals before publishing their name nor he gives the reasoning for the inclusion of the name of the publisher. The names of the members of his committee are also not revealed and whether such a committee exists is doubtful.
Science works by peer review and to be fair, each and every manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers and if needed additional reviewers when a decision can not be reached. However, such a mechanism does not exist for the reviews by Beall. Thus, Beall violates the essence of publishing that requires fair and unbiased reviews by at least two reviewers. The comments from publishers and others (http://scholarlyoa.net/) are examples of when Beall allegedly requests money and the publisher requests the name to be removed.
The university where he works has been silent on this issue and the reason for such silence is not understood when one of their members is causing clear harm to the publishers trying to disseminate science. We have written letters to the dean and associate dean of the school at no avail. Beall works at university of colorado, Denver. (http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/AboutUs/DeansOffice/Pages/contact-info.aspx) and lists his official telephone number at the university on his page is a clear indication that the university is supporting Beall’s action. Critical Analysis of Jeffrey Beall’s Blog – Open Access Publishing can be found at (http://www.scholarlyoa.net/).”
What next?
Better search more on the internet about him to grasp that person’s authenticity. He does not belong to any Nation’s Govt. nor is he reliable to judge the scientific journals.
Our responsibility
One should communicate this message/post amongst the colleagues, institutes/universities and concerned authorities to learn the misleading information.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational and educational purposes. One should use his intelligence to reach the final decision. Quotes of various websites and email communication have been cited in the this post so it could have plagiarism.
For educational learning, you can read about UGC listed journals and Scopus indexed journals.
