India’s fake medical journals; A sneak-peak
In the medical world, getting your article published is something which is extremely difficult to achieve. And if your article has made its way to the journal, then that’ll add an extra feather to your crown in getting hired or getting a promotion. It takes constant hard work, research and an original contribution to make it to the journal. Apart from the direct way in which one has to work so hard to get their article published, there is another way, somewhat indirect in which one can pay and make their article published in the journal.
Well, people seem to like the second way more since it is comparatively easy than the direct way. Recently, an investigation conducted by the Indian Express has revealed India to be one of the biggest markets for a business in which over 300 publishers manage what is called “predatory journals” that claim to be international and publish papers for a listed “charge” or “fee” that ranges from $30-$1,800 per piece. The investigation also found out that most of the publications exist online claim to have a list of experts as editors, and employ minimal or no editorial checks before publication.
Many such journals are operated by a single person. “These so-called predatory journals have brought a bad name for the country and also for many of its sincere researchers,” S C Lakhotia, professor emeritus at Banaras Hindu University, told The Indian Express. He was a member of a committee set by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to assess the publications in the medical field. The list had 32000 journals which included fake and other unreliable journals.
According to the investigation report by Indian Express, one company owned 700 journals, another brought out 10. One website offered a 96% discount, another did not list its fee but said it is fairly reasonable, and while all the owners claimed they were running legitimate open access operations, the editors who responded to a questionnaire said they were yet to edit a single article.
Following are some companies which can be considered as the mastermind of the journals.
OMICS
No. of journals: 785
Topics: Medicine, Pharmaceuticals, Engineering, Technology, Management
Charge: $149-$1,819
Run by Srinubabu Gedela, a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Andhra University, Hyderabad-based OMICS is one of the largest publishers of predatory journals in India. Court records in the US, where OMICS is facing action from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for alleged fraudulent claims, state: “Between August 25, 2011, and July 31, 2017, Defendants (OMICS) have taken in gross revenues, in the form of publication and conference registration fees from consumers, of at least approximately $50,740,100.05… Several academics and professionals who agreed to serve on the editorial boards of these journals stated that they never received any manuscripts to review.” The Indian Express contacted two experts listed as editors on the OMICS website — Rajesh Malhotra, professor of orthopedics, AIIMS-Delhi, and Ravi Kant, director, AIIMS-Rishikesh — and both denied this claim by the publisher. The company claims to have published over 1 million articles.
REACTION: Srinubabu Gedela: “(The FTC charge) is completely wrong… They don’t know the definition of the journal. They don’t know what peer review is. They are illiterates. Scientists are not illiterates. They know which article to publish in which journal.”
Austin
No. of journals: 202
Topics: Medicine, Pharmacology
Charge: $1,800
The group, which has also published over a dozen e-books, is run by a Hyderabad-based couple, Mahendra Reddy Chirra and Siva Parvathi Chirra. Its websites show a web of addresses for various entities — from New Jersey in the US to Andheri-Kurla in Mumbai. Registrar of Company documents shows that Austin Publishers Pvt Ltd was incorporated in Hyderabad on February 13, 2014. They show that its name was changed to Austin Info Consultancy Pvt Ltd in August 2015, with Mahendra Reddy and Siva Parvathi as directors. The contact details of editors and members of the editorial team are not available on the Austin websites. The company claims to have published over 7,000 articles.
REACTION: Mahendra Reddy Chirra: “My spouse is from a medical background… In this globalized world, location is of no matter. Academicians need their work to get published and we are serving the publication needs of all academicians across the world. Major publishers are outsourcing their work to India because of the resources available here.”
Science Domain
No. of journals: 111
Topics: Science, Technology, Medicine
Charge: $500
Run by a Hugli-based couple, Science Domain has a registered company in the UK. As for its owners, Pinaki Mondal is listed as an MTech degree holder and a former employee of International Centre for Automobile Technology, while his wife, identified only as “Dr (Ms) M B Mondal”, is shown to have completed her Ph.D. Sciencedomain.org says it charges $500 per article but offers discounts of up to 96% on this price. “Kindly contact to editor.15@sciencedomain.org to know payment instructions for bank wire transfer,” it states. The website claims that four of its journals are on the UGC list but The Indian Express found only one — British Journal of Economics, Management & Trade — although its new version, Journal of Economics, Management, and Trade, is missing. The company claims to have published over 20,000 articles.
REACTION: Dr (Ms) M B Mondal: “We strongly protest any attempt to label Sciencedomain International as a predatory publisher… Our journals follow the transparent open peer review model, so the main criteria of predatory publishing cannot be applied.”
IJRDO Journals
No. of journals: 43
Subjects: Engineering, Medicine, Science, Technology, Management, Health Science, Environment
Charge: $30-$100
Naeem Akhtar, who lists himself as the “Chief Editor” or “Editor-in-Chief” of 32 journals published by IJRDO, runs a coaching center for children at the address in Gurgaon listed on the websites of many of these publications. Apart from Akhtar, payments are accepted — NEFT, Moneygram, etc — in the names of at least four other individuals identified as Jafar Inam, Rais Ahmed, Aasif Khan and Jabbar Khan. Akhtar describes himself as a “B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2014… currently pursuing the M.Tech in CSE”. Two IJRDO journals were on the UGC list before being removed on May 2. The Indian Express sent emails seeking details to 21 members of the editorial team of IJRDO Journal of Business Management. Only one, identified as Buddhi Prakash Chauhan, responded to say that “perhaps, they did not take my consent”. Asked how many articles he had edited, Chauhan said: “None.”
REACTION: Naeem Akhtar: “We do not pay our editors or reviewers. They review the manuscripts voluntarily. Currently, we are improving our standards by focusing on quality research papers. So anyone can’t expect to publish their article by just paying the publication charges. However, we do ask for the publication charges after an editorial decision is taken.”
Among these predatory publishers, OMICS, IOSR Journals, and Sciencedomain were the key players.
From VC’s to AIIMS Directors
The range and reach of the people who are linked with such ‘predatory’ journals and articles are astonishing. Among all the journals, most of the articled by such people are listed in the Hyderabad based OMICS and Turkey-based ‘WASET’.
During the investigation, the Indian Express contacted the Indian experts who were listed in the journals, but they either the Indian experts who were listed either denied any links to these publications and conferences or attributed their presence on the list to “juniors” who had sent articles for publication. Others said they were not aware that these journals charged money for publishing articles. The OMICS and WASET database includes hundreds of articles listed against the names of faculty, researchers and experts from premier institutions such as AIIMS, RML Hospital-Delhi, SGPGI-Lucknow, JIPMER-Puducherry, IITs, NITs, JNU, Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University and several other renowned institutions.
How does it work?
Predatory journals often exist only online and they usually publish research without any expert reviews. Usually, their fees range from a couple of thousands to lakhs. The UGC website defines predatory journals or predatory publishers as “unscrupulous open access journals or publishers who publish articles on payment but with little or no real peer review. Explained: How the pay-and-publish business works(They) exploit the business model of open-access publishing that involves charging publication fees… without following the editorial and publishing policies and services associated with legitimate journals”. Not all the online journals are predatory; Several reputed journals with strict peer review policies, too, follow the model of accepting “processing charges” from authors. The Union Grants Commission (UGC) regulates the Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education. According to the UGC regulations act 2010, 15 marks will be awarded for each article published in “Refereed Journals”, and 10 marks for those published in “Non-refereed but recognized and reputable journals and periodicals, having ISBN/ISSN numbers.
The Indian Express found around 300 publishers from India publishing more than 6,000 journals and organizing hundreds of conferences in the country and abroad. The pressure to publish, and to present papers at conferences in order to collect the marks needed for recruitments/promotions often incentivizes pay-to-publish practices. It is important to note, however, that only a small share of the clientele of predatory publishers based in India are from India. Says Beall, who managed the Auraria Library in Denver, US, until March this year, predatory publishers are “giving a bad name to India. In 2017, UGC published a list of over 32,000 “approved journals” on its website, which meant that articles published in these journals would be considered in promotions and recruitments. Earlier UGC has asked the universities to recommend some good journals for the list and thus, several poor quality publications managed to make their entry to the list. UGC had to slash 4,305 journals from the list, as several questions raised. But the concerns regarding the predatory journals is global. In 2017, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) expressed concern regarding “the growing number of entities that are advertising themselves as ‘scholarly medical journals’ (but are)… ‘fake’, ‘predatory’, or ‘pseudo’ journals (that) misrepresent their peer-review and publication processes… for the sole purpose of making money”.
From one to 1500 in 10 years
Hyderabad can be considered as the hub of the predatory journals. OMICS which only had one journal 10 years ago has grown to have 1500 journals under their name now. Almost all such journals exist online and are managed by the companies across the city. Two other journals, Avens Publishing Group and Open Science Publications run by a 32-year-old P Ashvin Kumar, has 46 and 17 regular journals respectively. Also, the ‘Avens’ has got around 1500 editorial members as their team. Bio Accent, another science journal runs 47 journals and lists a US address on its website. However, the website itself is registered in the name of Ravi Shankar Kuppalla of Parvathi Nagar in Hyderabad. Similarly, CRESCO Publications, which claims to run 116 journals, has provided a US address on its website, which is registered in the name of Ramchandra Reddy of Guntur. The list is long and there are hundreds more with dual identities.
When asked about the revenue, Srinubabu Gedela, the CEO of one of the largest predatory journals OMICS said to the Indian Express that, ” Our articles from India are very few, less than 0.01 percent… 99.99 percent of articles are from outside. So we are not concerned about India, indexing, UGC, etc. This is all nonsense. Our services are all export and there is no business in India.”
Despite all the claims by the predatory journals that they are not getting any revenue from India, the truth is that Indian publications, and academics, have been increasingly finding themselves at the wrong end of international investigations into the rise of bogus publishing. All such ‘fake’ things impose harm on the academic spirit and education. This wicked practice is likely to degrade and destroy the ‘pure’ form of academia teaching!