On 15th of January 2017, it has come to our attention that Jeffrey Beall’s blog (https://scholarlyoa.com/) was shut down for unknown reasons. It could be due to lawsuit of US government or simply someone might have hacked it. Whatever it is, his attempt and movement, in general, have been questioned by leading scholars around the world (see previous posts on this blog) and his personal views and opinion are not favored anymore. In lieu of this, people, universities and institutes would prefer to rely on consolidated lists released by organizations such as DOAJ, SCOPUS, Thomson Reuters,PubMed (Medline) and other leading indexing services. A journal/publisher would be a potential venue for publication if their ethical practice has been approved by COPE or any other similar organizations. ( for further info see: Choose the right journal for your research=http://thinkchecksubmit.org/]
Update 1.
It seems that the shutdown of Beall’s blog has become a hot issue on twittter today (#Jeffrey Beall – https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=jeffrey%20beall). Some have expressed their concerns on mysterious disappearance of the blog and its content, others are worried and not comfortable about the announcement we made. Nevertheless, it is quite peculiar to see that no one is asking about Jeffrey himself, which is our utmost concern at the present time. We never consider him as a foe, rather someone who has devoted most of his life to disclose the fact behind publishing, be it open access or pay toll journals, though his approach is not professional and have been challenged over the time. Regardless of his strong positions (right/wrong), he is a human being and the academia owes him too much. It is suggested that people should start asking where he is. Is he safe? why does not he respond? What has happened to him? Attempts have to be made to discover the fact very soon, if you claim to be a true follower of him. There are dozens of copies of his blog on the internet and it is unnecessary to dig and republish them. What matters now, we believe, is Jeffrey himself.
Update 2.
@Lacey E. Earle @CabellsPublish: Jeffrey Beall, whom we all we know very well, is not someone to be afraid of threats. Lots of them have already been around for the past few years. (see legal threats, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Beall). Everyone must stop speculations and convey the facts, if they can. “Cabell’s is in no way involved” has already been tweeted. Completely opposing views, however. Interestingly no further insights are given.
Vanishing mysteriously and simply wiping out the blog, facebook account and the academic profile is not what academicians were expecting to face all of a sudden. So many have trusted him and used his lists, but it sounds all have been in vein. What is the distinction between Beall’s lists and those unethical journals which have gone dark over a night. He is an only individual, perhaps does not believe in teamwork, behind the operation and ostensibly an individual-based work won’t last too long. It was crystal-clear that a single handed challenging work (partially illegitimate and biased) through sever attacks on individuals, journals and publisher along with unfounded and baseless allegations and harsh tones (regardless of OA/Subscribed) won’t go too far. No guarantee and No warranty!
@A truly wonderful analogy, Disappearance of MH370 vs. Jeffrey Beall
All are impatiently waiting for him to drop a line and respond to clear off the baffling situation.
Update 3.
‘CU Denver spokesperson told ScienceInsider that Beall made a “personal decision” to take down his list’. So if the establishment and managing the the list was for personal reasons, opinions and views were personal, and finally the shutdown was due to personal decision, why would the public be concerned about the disappearance of his blog? The academia might have been fooled to some extent by trusting him.
Update 4.
While Jeffrey Beall’s Blog is down and there is no reaction from his side (some expected to see his immediate reflection from his Twitter account) , we decided to list out probable reasons why Beall’s list (questionable journals/publishers) should not have been considered seriously and subsequently it should not be used as a reference point any more in the future.
At this point the cause of shutdown is not clear, but many believe the lawsuits prompted the shutdown and this makes room for alternative organizations like OASAP and DOAJ to lead the mission properly. For now, it is advisable to consult with thinkchecksubmit.org before submitting a paper for review and publication.
However, his hijacked journal’s list and the list of misleading metrics are still admirable.
Some reasons;
- J. Beall has constantly blamed the publishers/journals on his list that there is only one single person behind them and he/she manager everything on the journals. This same claim is true for us to raise at the moment. Jeffrey Beall was an only person behind his blog, acting ac a cop to OA journals/publishers and never considered anyone’s else comments. His appeal page was for a show merely. He had pointed out that content of his blog are personal views. In doing so, do you think personal views should be entertained?
- One of the items in his criteria for journal/publisher evaluation was ‘digital archiving policy of journal/publisher’. What about his own blog? He would have a secondary source for a rainy day if he was right. Now, an opportunity has been created for everyone to exploit his list and offer a new list, like this one; https://sites.google.com/site/fakeresearchjournalpublishers/home
- Criticizing OA journals with any model in any filed was out of his capability. He wanted to be Jack of all trade. (Read more https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/openvt/2015/05/19/a-response-to-jeffrey-bealls-critique-of-open-access/)
- J. Beall never respected the organizations to which their mission was to evaluate and assessed the quality of the journals and their content.
Update 5.
“http://scholarlyoa.net”reported that Beall doubles down.. Predatory blog shutdown
Our stance
One of the missions of this blog is to share reflections on Beall’s movement and we basically document these reactions and republish them. All published posts are acknowledged by providing the source of information beneath the post. This blog has no intention to project itself as an anti-Beall activist.
Beall’s List: List of Hijacked Journals & Misleading Metric Companies
Despite the mission an vision of this blog and partial disagreement with Beall’s views, we decided to maintain a copy of latest updated list. Indeed it was a huge contribution of him to publishing integrity. At times, we will continue and update the list.
Source:”Beall, J.2016″. scholarlyoa.com
Published under CC-BY.
Misleading Metrics
- AE Global Index
- Advanced Science Index
- African Quality Centre for Journals
- American Standards for Journals and Research (ASJR)
- Arab Impact Factor = معامل التأثير العربي
- CiteFactor
- Cosmos Impact Factor
- Digital Identification Database System (DIDS)
- Digital Online Identifier-Database System (doi ds) DOI Indexed Journals Impact Factor (DOIJIF)
- Directory of Indexing and Impact Factor (DIIF)
- Directory of Journal Quality Factor
- Directory of Research Journals Indexing (DRJI)
- Einstein Institute for Scientific Information (EISI)
- Eurasian Scientific Journal Index (ESJI)
- General Impact Factor
- Global Impact Factor
- Global Science Citation Impact Factor (GSCIF)
- IMPACT-FACTOR.RU
- Impact Factor Services for International Journals (I.F.S.I.J.)
- Index Scientific Journals (ISJ)
- IndexCopernicus
- Infobase Index
- Institute for Science Information (ISI)
- International Accreditation and Research Council (IARC)
- International Impact Factor Services
- International Innovative Journal Impact Factor (IIJIF)
- International Institute for Research
- International Institute of Organized Research (I2OR)
- International Journal Impact Factor (IJIF)
- International Scientific Indexing (ISI)
- International Scientific Institute (ISI) (scijournal.org)
- International Services for Impact Factor and Indexing (ISIFI)
- International Society for Research Activity (ISRA) Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
- Jour Informatics
- Journal Impact Factor
- Journals Impact Factor (JIFACTOR)
- Journal Influence Factor
- Journals Consortium. Journal Influence Factor (JIF)
- JPR Impact Factor
- Online Publications Quality Control Association (OPQC)
- Open Academic Journals Index
- Perma Society of Technical Education and Research
- Pubicon Science Index
- RJI Factor (Research Journal Impact Factor)
- Root Indexing
- Science Impact Factor
- Scientific Indexing Services (SIS)
- Scientific Journal Impact Factor
- SCIJOURNAL.ORG (International Scientific Institute)
- SPARC Indexing
- Systematic Impact Factor
- Technical Impact Factor
- Universal Impact Factor
- The website for the metric is nontransparent and provides little information about itself such as location, management team and its experience, other company information, and the like
- The company charges journals for inclusion in the list.
- The values (scores) for most or all of the journals on the list increase each year.
- The company uses Google Scholar as its database for calculating metrics (Google Scholar does not screen for quality and indexes predatory journals)
- The metric uses the term “impact factor” in its name.
- The methodology for calculating the value is contrived, unscientific, or unoriginal.
- The company exists solely for the purpose of earning money from questionable journals that use the gold open-access model. The company charges the journals and assigns them a value, and then the journals use the number to help increase article submissions and therefore revenue. Alternatively, the company exists as a front for an existing publisher and assigns values to that publisher’s journals.
Hijacked Journals
“Sometimes someone will create a counterfeit website that pretends to be the website of a legitimate scholarly journal. The website creators then solicit manuscript submissions for the hijacked version of the journal, pocketing the money. In some cases the legitimate versions of the journals are only published in print form and they may not have websites.
In the table below, the hijacked journal is listed in the left column; the corresponding authentic version of the journal is on the right. In cases where no website can be found for the original journal, a link is made to a bibliographic record for the journal.”
Support for Open Access Publishing 