An avenue around traditional subscription-based
publishing probably sounds like a good idea to many faculty members. The
problem is that not all scholarly open-access (OA) publishing firms are equal.
That’s where Jeffrey Beall can help. Beall, academic
librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado, Denver, has created a
list of publishers that he feels do not meet sufficient standards and a blog to spread the
word. The list is very long, with more than 120 companies listed as
“questionable, scholarly open publishers” in the “A” section alone.
“Too many open-access advocates think that because OA
is not a problem for them personally, they’re not a problem at all,” Beall told
Inside Higher Education last October.
“This is absolutely not true. Research published in predatory journals is
polluting the entire scholarly publishing ecosystem.”
Beall’s list is updated regularly and the criteria for inclusion are about as long as the list of publishers.
