Sally, I don't wish to belabour the point, but I also don't want it to be missed. I appear to have been too oblique in my original comment, which may have obscured its relevance to you as well as to others on this listserv. What I meant to address was your assertion that you think it is "a fallacy that publishers launch new journals in order to make money". The link I provided was to a report by Peter Suber that Elsevier in Australia launched 6 fake biomedical journals that included "a series of sponsored article publications". Elsevier declined to name the sponsors, although when this story initially broke about the first two journals, it was reported that those were sponsored by Merck. It is quite clear, however, that all 6 journals were launched solely to make money, basically to provide "infomercials" written by Elsevier's clients under the guise of independent, peer-reviewed research results. More important than addressing your assertion, however, was to bring this scandal to the attention of the recipients of this listserv, since these incidents do not appear to have been widely reported. They strike me as a rather fundamental breach of scientific integrity and publishing ethics in the sensitive area of public health that should be of concern to everyone--researchers, publishers, and the broader public. Paul
____________________________________________________________________________ From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Sally Morris Sent: Sun 5/17/2009 4:48 AM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES Sorry Paul, I don't see the relevance of this to my general response to a wide-ranging and, IMHO, unfounded comment Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK Tel: +44(0)1903 871286 Fax: +44(0)8701 202806 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk ____________________________________________________________________________ From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Uhlir, Paul Sent: 15 May 2009 22:38 To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES Sally, you may wish to reconsider your assumptions and assertions in light of the following: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2009/05/elsevier-confirms-6-fake-journals -more.html Paul ____________________________________________________________________________ From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Sally Morris Sent: Fri 5/15/2009 10:56 AM To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES Tenopir and King found that the average number of articles per journal was, in fact, increasing steadily. I think it's a fallacy that publishers launch new journals in order to make money; it is, surely, more profitable to expand an existing journal (assuming you can increase the price accordingly)? New journals take years to make any money, even if they succeed - and not all do Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK Tel: +44(0)1903 871286 Fax: +44(0)8701 202806 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk ____________________________________________________________________________ From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: 15 May 2009 15:33 To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Kathryn Sutherland's Attack on OA in the THES ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Colin Smith at Open University I've just realised I quoted the wrong day in the email I just sent to the forum. It should have been Mon 11 May, not Fri. If this reaches you in time, please correct it during moderation. On Mon 11 May 2009 at 09:27 Sally Morris wrote: While Andrew Adams' letter makes some valid points, I would like to point out that the number of articles per author has not changed over many years (Tenopir and King have excellent data on this). Thus neither 'publish or perish' nor 'greedy publishers' have contributed in any way to the steady growth (not 'explosion') of research articles - it simply reflects growth in research funding, and thus number of researchers." Even if the number of articles per author has not changed significantly, surely the issue here is the number of journals in which those articles are published? Is there any data on this? If the steady growth in articles is being spread thinly across a larger number of titles then this could be interpreted as evidence for the needless launch of new journals in a saturated market. Anecdotally, I seem to come across more and more journals publishing two issues in one, presumably because of a lack of copy-flow. Indeed, I have worked for at least one publisher where a decision was taken to exploit an (unconvincing) niche in the market by launching a new journal, instead of looking to enhance the editorial content of an existing title. That journal then struggled for copy, publishing very thin or joint issues, but generated more income than if the publisher had accommodated the extra papers by increasing the size or number of issues of an (appropriate) existing journal. Colin Smith Research Repository Manager Open Research Online (ORO) Open University Library Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA http://twitter.com/smithcolin http://oro.open.ac.uk