The Biocan, second door on the left.
The Bioscan is an open-access journal that claims to be the official organ of India’s National Environmentalists Association, however, the journal appears to really be a one-man operation, one man who cannot spell very well. I love the misspelling they have near the top of their main page: The Biocan. This word makes me think of a composting toilet. Here are the reasons I consider this to be a predatory journal. The journal …
- Does not give any licenses to its articles other than to say they are open-access
- Does not state the amount of the APC (but it does list membership fees)
- Boasts a sloppy website with many grammatical and spelling errors
- Has articles that are full of plagiarism
- Provides examples of how references should appear, but the examples contain a bunch of errors
- Has five different levels of editorial boards, but they mostly appear to be honorary
- Has a spare website that provides no information about preservation, retraction, peer review, and the like.
- Has a broad coverage (all life sciences) in order to attract many articles
- The title is not original; there are several companies with the same name
We’d like to meet the Editorial Broad.
If you look closely, you’ll see the misspelling “broad” instead of “board.” In American English “broad” is a slang term for woman, so “editorial broad” congers up an image of a pushy, female journal editor. The most salient aspect of this publisher is its unprofessional-sounding name. The website offers no explanation of the name, and we think it’s an attempt to make the publisher sound more Western than it in fact is. A more accurate name for the publisher might be Fatima & Abdullah Research Academia, given the home countries of the majority of its editorial board members. A brand-new publisher, Mary & Sam is launching with four journals:
- European Social Sciences Research Journal
- European Journal of Arts and Humanities
- European Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences
- European Journal of Management Sciences and Economics
Again, trying to pass itself off as a Western publisher, the company uses the term “European” in each of its journal titles. We also observe that each journal’s scope is broad, the better to attract more author fees. As of this writing (late December, 2012), none of the journals has any content. Regarding publication fees, the publisher states,
Publication fee is GBP 100 per paper with maximum 5000 words. Fee for each additional word GBP 0.02 will be charged. If the paper is accepted for publication, you will be asked to pay Article Publication Fee (link to payment page). Authors can obtain a printed copy of the journal after advance payment of GBP 50.
This is the first instance I’ve seen of a publisher charging an author fee based on exact word count. The domain name registration data indicates the site is held by Sumiya Bashir, with a registration address of Somerset house 6070 Birmingham B37 7BF, United Kingdom.
This makes me wonder what Dame Finch thinks about gold open-access now. Is this publisher an example of what she and her committee envisioned? Perhaps she is the editorial broad they are referring to.
