[visionlist] Beall's List gone dark

Tue Jan 31 17:44:05 EST 2017

Dear colleagues, it is with great disappointment that I have discovered,
thanks to your mails, the scale of the problem of the predatory publishers
and the existence of the (ex)-Beall's list. It has *saddened me deeply*,
considering the fact that three years ago I was accepted as Editor in Chief
of Neuro-Ophthalmology & Visual Neuroscience (NOVN), a journal that I
personally created with Science and Education Publisher (Sciep): Indeed, I
have discovered that SCIEP (with specific reference to one of the journals,
that is fortunately not NOVS) is one of the publishers listed under the
black list. As I firmly believe in Research, that I consider the sole
reason of my professional life, I took my commitment very, very seriously,
and was decided to do all my best to help this editorial project grow more
and more. In this respect, the few number of papers submitted so far did
not discourage me: on the contrary, they constitute an even more exciting
challenge.
So, all this notwithstanding, after a great deal of reflection I have
decided to go on, but only after being reassured by the publisher the
shared intent is the dissemination of serious and rigorous Scientific
Research.
Otherwise, i will immediately resign.
I really hope you will approve my manner of acting,

Sincerely,
Carlo Aleci, MD, Ph.D

*Carlo Aleci MD, Ph.D*

*Editor-in-Chief*

*Neuro-Ophthalmology & Visual Neuroscience*

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 6:33 PM, Russell Hamer <russhamer2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Update to my Blog Post from 27 Feb 2014, originally prompted by a battle
> with a Sham Open-Access ‘Journal’ in 2013:
>
>
>
> 30 January, 2017
>
> Dear Scientific colleagues,
>
>
>
> There is an uncanny irony (perhaps *eerie familiarity* would be
> appropriate in this instance) in the disappearance of Jeffrey Beall’s
> Scholarly Open Access blog site. We have all begun to descend rapidly down
> a shear slope that has been recently revealed in stark relief by the
> official arrival of legitimization of “fake news” in our society. Somehow,
> seemingly overnight, a massive wedge has been *successfully* driven
> between the intellectual domains governed by empirical-based epistemology
> and her Evil twin  - “alternative ‘facts’ “.  Our experience within the
> naïve and relatively civil society of Science perhaps served as a kind of
> palliative, a numbing fog leaving us ‘Science-Lambs’ particularly
> vulnerable to the ‘Alt-Fact (Sham-Journal) Wolves’.
>
>
>
> The irony in the timing of the evaporation of Jeffrey Beall’s website is
> especially poignant when faced with a new, frightening cultural force –
> i.e., the brazen and cynical assault on knowledge, on the very mechanisms
> we have come to rely on that *generate* and *define* knowledge.  We are
> witnessing an insidious ascent of viral malignant memes into popular
> culture, indeed into the political and news-producing machinery, that seeks
> to pull an Orwellian card-trick right under our dumb-struck noses, and
> prove to us that all claims are created equal, that beliefs, regardless of
> basis, and empirical-based facts have the same genotype. The driving forces
> behind the proliferation of Sham ‘Open-Access’ Journals and the
> proliferation of the various forms of “Fake News” in society are admittedly
> not identical.  But their inevitable corrosive effects on Science and the
> culture at large are decidedly comparable. When the leader of the ‘free
> world’ can state, with impunity, that legitimate, well-studied concerns
> about the pace and causes of climate change (global warming in particular)
> are a hoax propagated by China, we all need to be alarmed. And we need to
> be alarmed at the disappearance of Jeffrey Beall’s clarion (and apparently
> lone) voice against the assault within our particular intellectual borders,
> the world of scientific publication.  Here is what I wrote 4 years ago on
> this topic, before our parochial concern was joined by analogous concerns
> in the wider society of public discourse:
>
>
>
> <><><>
>
>
>
> 27 Feb 2014
>
> Dear Colleagues and Friends,
>
>
>
> There is a growing trend in our field (and probably others) that threatens
> to become epidemic, a development that poses a serious threat to the spirit
> and practice of scholarly, scientific research.  That is, the proliferation
> of sham/predatory "open-access" journals.  Some of you may have already
> fallen prey to the tactics of one of these many new “journals”.
>
> To obtain a glimpse of  the potential scope to this problem, it is worth
> one’s while to take a close look at a  website is called “Scholarly Open
> Access (http://scholarlyoa.com/)”.
>
> The manager of this site has taken it upon himself to compile a ton of
> information about known or suspected sham journals. The site offers
> sensible recommendations as to what “red flags” to look out for, and
> documents some “case studies” and provides a long list of so-called
> open-access journals that are either predatory/sham businesses, or are
> suspected of being so based on criteria that are spelled out explicitly on
> the website. Any journal listed a suspect has right of appeal and if a
> mistake is confirmed, the name of that journal will be deleted from the
> site’s “no-fly” list.
>
>
>
> It is clearly in any scientists best interest to avoid publishing (or
> trying to publish) in one of these journals, but it may be especially
> important for young scientists to avoid these journals since their career
> (and reputation) is just beginning to be established.
>
>
>
> Here is my take on the big picture:
>
>
>
> Science is vulnerable to any nefarious tinkering that pollutes the
> essential fertilizer of real progress - its adherence to what Jacob
> Bronowski called the "Habit of Truth".  Misuse of our lightning-fast media
> for dissemination of scientific ideas and findings has the potential to do
> great harm to us all. The moment we doubt the honesty of a scientist, we
> doubt the veracity and value of his/her work. What about when we come to
> doubt the honesty of a journal?  Then all publications in that journal come
> to be doubted, deserved or not.  And so on.  It is a cancer that can
> metastasize as rapidly as the click of a mouse button nowadays.
>
>
>
> What to do?  Blogs like http://scholarlyoa.com/ are one defense, and we
> ought to applaud and support it. Awakening the vast majority of an honest
> scientific community (the "Lambs") to the existence of, and tactics of the
> Sham-Journal-"Wolves" is certainly a key ingredient in an effective
> response to this kind of thing.  Maybe we also need to organize a
> conference(s) of some sort to seek to establish a *journal* peer-review
> process, or at least discuss the merits and feasibility of some sort of
> minimal accreditation procedure that an “open-access” journal must receive
> to be included in the sphere of serious, trustworthy science. Some of the
> criteria Scholarly Open Access uses to identify potentially illegitimate
> journals represent a useful, intelligent outline for development of more
> formal accreditation or evaluative/rating scheme.
>
>
>
> My gut response is not comfortable with this prospect, even though this
> may be where we are being pushed.  For centuries, scientific progress has
> done astoundingly well using the honor system, and self-evaluative
> mechanisms.  There is no "law" or official rule that forces a scientist to
> be honest in his/her observations or reporting of them, or to do a thorough
> literature search about the topics relevant to his/her work. Yet breach of
> these principles can bring serious censure to scientists who fail to adhere
> to our mutually-agreed-upon Ethical standards. Yet, even when there is no
> law, we do these things, we try to adhere to and maintain the “Habit of
> Truth” - some are more assiduous and rigorous in this than others. And, to
> be sure, all of us are increasingly challenged by the sheer volume and
> expansion of scientific literature that needs to be absorbed and cited.
> But we do this without a "law" to make us; it is simply what we know is
> required to maintain the credibility of our work and to generate true
> knowledge that is evidence-based and that will stand the test of time.
>
>
>
> Jacob Bronowski said in his 1956 book, *Science & Human Values* ():
>
> *"We OUGHT to act in such a way that what IS true can be verified to be
> so."*
>
>
>
> He goes on to say:
>
> *"The dizzy progress of science, theoretical and practical, has depended
> on the existence of a fellowship of science which is free, uninhibited [he
> meant free and uninhibited to speak truth to anyone, authority included!],
> and communicative. It is not an upstart society, for it derives its
> traditions, both of scholarship and of service, from roots which reach
> through the Renaissance into the monastic communities and the first
> universities. The men and woman who practise the sciences make a company of
> scholars which has been more lasting than any modern state, yet which has
> changed and evolved as no Church has....In an obvious sense, theirs is the
> power of virtue. By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in
> their work are of course oddly virtuous.  They do not make wild
> claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they
> appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority, they are often frank about
> their ignorance, their disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse
> what is being argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently
> to the young and to the old who both know everything...These are the
> general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the virtues of
> science."*
>
>
>
> This image of our profession is one we all carry, silently, as a guiding
> philosophy that needs no explanation. Now in our internet age, I fear that
> we scientists (and likely members of many other professions!) may need to
> start circling the wagons. When it so easy to cheat on a huge scale, we may
> all need to begin to adopt an unfortunate vigilance and to seek reliable
> methods to protect and preserve the integrity of science. Progress will
> cease if integrity is sacrificed.
>
>
>
> To be clear, I am not a fan of "policing" our activities.  But what can we
> do about this kind of misuse of an increasingly open-access information
> world that will not poison the very pearl that we nurture, a pearl that is
> now growing faster than ever - i.e., the true democratization of access to,
> and generation of knowledge/information?  This is a real conundrum:  How do
> we protect our science and the mechanisms of its dissemination without
> infecting them with another unintended virus.
>
>
>
> At the very least, we need to start a broader discussion about this issue
> and try to formulate, democratically, a sensible policy response to this
> threat.
>
>
>
> Russell D. Hamer, PhD.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:55 AM, John Pezaris <jpezaris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd prefer to avoid personal attacks on a scientific mailing list.
>>
>> Beall's list was an important resource.  I'm wondering if some
>> professional society might take up the mantle and continue it,
>> somehow.  The problem is that it would seem any society sufficiently
>> large enough to devote the necessary resources (and fight any
>> potential legal consequences) would have its own publication and
>> therefore an inherent conflict of interest.  Does anyone have ideas on
>> how to avoid that scenario?
>>
>> - J.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 1/26/17, Sebastiaan Mathot <s.mathot at cogsci.nl> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> >
>> > Let's not glorify Jeffrey Beall too much (or at all). His list was
>> > useful, but it was never healthy that such an important resource was
>> > curated by a single nutcase. To illustrate, let me quote from one his
>> > papers:
>> >
>> >
>> > /"The open-access movement is really about anti-corporatism. OA
>> > advocates want to make collective everything and eliminate private
>> > business, except for small businesses owned by the disadvantaged. They
>> > don't like the idea of profit, even though many have a large portfolio
>> > of mutual funds in their retirement accounts that invest in for-profit
>> > companies."/
>> >
>> >
>> > And so on, and so on. Is that the kind of guy we want to depend on? No
>> > thanks.
>> >
>> >
>> > And yes, he actually wrote this! In an obscure open-access journal,
>> > ironically.
>> >
>> >
>> > - http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514
>> >
>> >
>> > Michael Eisen wrote an interesting blog about this:
>> >
>> >
>> > - http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1500
>> >
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > Sebastiaan
>> >
>> >
>> > On 26/01/2017 14:30, John Neuhoff wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Losing Beall's list is really unfortunate, particularly for new
>> >> scholars. There is some talks that Cabell's International is
>> >> developing a similar list based, in part, on Beall's list. See:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> https://www.cabells.com/about-us
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> There is some speculation that these two events are related (though
>> >> this has been denied by Cabell's). See also the efforts of Dr. Eugene
>> >> Noolah, a fictional character that has gotten himself appointed to the
>> >> editorial boards of several predatory journals.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Noolah/
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -JN
>> >>
>> >> ___________________________
>> >> John G. Neuhoff
>> >> Department of Psychology
>> >> The College of Wooster
>> >> http://jneuhoff.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------
>> >> *From:* visionlist <visionlist-bounces at visionscience.com> on behalf of
>> >> Hans Strasburger <strasburger at uni-muenchen.de>
>> >> *Sent:* Thursday, January 26, 2017 5:02 AM
>> >> *To:* cvnet; visionlist at visionscience.com
>> >> *Subject:* [visionlist] Beall's List gone dark
>> >> Dear fellow CVNetters and Visionlisters,
>> >>
>> >> Some of you may have already noticed but I only just found out: Beall's
>> >> List of potential predatory publishers and journals has disappeared.
>> >> It's just gone. We can imagine why this has happened but in any case I
>> >> find it highly disturbing. Beall's List may not have been perfect but
>> it
>> >> has been tremendously helpful to me over the years, to sort out all
>> >> those treacherous invitations I got, and still get, on a regular basis.
>> >>
>> >> http://retractionwatch.com/2017/01/17/bealls-list-potential-
>> predatory-publishers-go-dark/
>> >>
>> >> Note, though, that a snapshot of both the publishers list and journals
>> >> list are still mirrored on the web (details in that link), so it is
>> >> still time to download them (ASAP).
>> >>
>> >> All the best,
>> >> Hans
>> >>
>> >> www.hans.strasburger.de <http://www.hans.strasburger.de>
>> >> Hans Strasburger <http://www.hans.strasburger.de/>
>> >> www.hans.strasburger.de
>> >> Prof. Dr. habil., Dr. rer. biol. hum., Dipl. Math., Dipl. Psych. Hans
>> >> Strasburger: Universität München Inst. f. Med. Psychologie
>> >> strasburger at uni-muenchen.de
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> visionlist mailing list
>> >> visionlist at visionscience.com
>> >> http://visionscience.com/mailman/listinfo/visionlist_visionscience.com
>> >
>> > --
>> > Department of Experimental Psychology
>> > University of Groningen
>> > http://www.cogsci.nl/smathot
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Pezaris, Ph.D.
>> jpezaris at gmail.com
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://visionscience.com/mailman/listinfo/visionlist_visionscience.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Russell David Hamer
>
> *USA cell:  1 516 543 2109*
> *Skype name*: *russhamer*
>
>
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>
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>
> --
> Russ' current quotes:
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> translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in
> all time, this expression is unique.*”  ~ Martha Graham~
>
> "*To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite
> enough time*"
> ~Leonard Bernstein~
>
> "*This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more
> beautifully, more devotedly than ever before*." ~Leonard Bernstein~
>
> "*When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the
> time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into
> millions of pieces, but still He glittered and hummed. So they beat Him
> down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So
> they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks
> made them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the
> other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.*”  ~ Zora
> Neal Hurston~  from *Their Eyes Were Watching God*.
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