Communications of the ACM
The Ftc Is Cracking Down on Predatory Science Journals
When Paul Vaucher received an invitation to submit an article in a special issue of the Journal of Forensic Research, he gladly accepted. A University of Geneva neuroscience Ph.D. student at the time, he was eager for the publishing credit and excited for the exposure.
He sent in the manuscript, and was surprised when the article showed up online a few days later. Usually, peer-reviewed papers take months and many rounds of back-and-forth comments and corrections before publication. Vaucher had had no such contact with anyone at the Journal of Forensic Research.
In the last five years, open-access journals have cropped up all over the Internet, their websites looking like those of any typical scholarly publisher: editorial boards filled with bios of well-respected scientists, claims of rigorous peer review, indexing in the most influential databases. The looks of these publishers have deceived thousands of young and inexperienced researchers all over the world, costing them millions of dollars — and for many, their reputations.
So it is with good reason that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has taken an interest in these "predatory" publishers.
From Wired
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