“Offshore” journals

Jeffrey Beall is doing much to draw attention to issues surrounding the validity of new journals. He is in the news today because a publisher is threatening to sue him for one billion (yes, billion with a b) dollars.

But I wanted to comment about a post from April about Hindawi Publishing. Beall ends:

Is this the future of scholarly publishing, dumbed down and offshore?

The “offshore” comment has a slightly snobbish overtone. It implies that, “Of course, some places simply can’t produce good scholarship.” I am sensitive to this, since I realized my own posts made similar jabs at the national origin of many journals. I realized that was a little unfair.

I agree that researchers some countries do face bigger challenges in producing top-quality scholarship. It could be due to lack of infrastructure, distorted publishing incentives, or an overly cliquish academic culture. But such challenges need to be examined and spelled out, not made in an offhand way.

External links

Hindawi’s Profit Margin is Higher than Elsevier’s
Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for $1-Billion

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