Some weeks ago, I received a very spammy-looking email Request
for Papers
from the editorial team of Academic Journals Online
(cfp@academicjournalsonline.co.in). Nine times out of ten, I
would have deleted it without a second thought, but something about it
annoyed me enough to investigate further.
Academic Journals Online (AJO) is a peer-reviewed online International
journals [sic] that publishes manuscripts monthly.
I went to their web site (academicjournalsonline.co.in) and had a quick
look around. The journals are all named "International Journal of Trends
in …" (Computer Science, Multidisciplinary Engineering, Medical Science,
etc.). The site claims repeatedly that they are open-access, but charges
INR 500 to see more than the abstract of any paper. (The list of papers
was accessible in mid-January, but has been made "Members-only" now.) I
found no credible independent references to any of these journals.
Here's the abstract of a 2012 paper from the IJTCS, "Cloud Computing-An
ASPRIN Wonder Solution To Ever Growing IT Needs":
Cloud computing has become the ASPRIN Wonder solution to the ever
growing insatiable hungry needs of IT Organizations related to Private,
government and corporate sectors, Aspirin in the medical world has been
wonder solution for a number of ills affecting the human body similarly
the fanatic believers of Cloud computing propose it as the wonder
solution to the ever stressed out IT resources needed globally. The
unquenchable thirst for collaboration and sharing has paved the way for
cloud computing thereby heralding the entry of a much needed economical
technological catalyst. Tetra bytes of information surge like a tsunami
of data waves even as we read this paper .This paper deals with
understanding its concept, and the advantages it offers via various
models but also goes on to critically examining the adoption risks for
implementing cloud computing , pointing the security challenges ,the
users concerns, and more importantly factors needed to be addressed to
update cloud computing.
The paper is credited to Profs. Yashpal Singh Bist (Management Studies)
and Charu Agarwal (Computer Science) from the Daas College of Management
and Technology in Dehra Dun. The college appears to exist, but does not
have a web site. Being queasy from riding the surging data waves, I did
not make any further attempt to find out if the authors exist. (This
abstract was fairly representative of the other papers I looked at.)
Their site also lists an editorial board with 157(!) names. I selected a
few people at random and wrote to the ones I could find contact details
for, asking if they knew they were on this editorial board. The
half-dozen replies I received were all negative. I also found AJO listed
on fakejournals.blogspot.in (but that site is no longer up).
The academicjournalsonline.co.in domain is registered to a Sajeevan Rao
Arigela in Delhi, who is also the head of the editorial board, and thus
presumably the mastermind behind AJO. I sent him some mail (Cc:ed to the
editors) saying I was surprised that a renowned international journal
publisher would fraudulently list people on their editorial board.
To my surprise, the editor replied a few days later:
Thank you very much for your evaluation Report,
I would like to inform that We have all requisite documents
which are required as the formalities for fulfillment of
Criteria for the Registeration of Editorial Board Members.
Really, I am surprising to see that how the IEEE(India
Strongest Body),ELSEVIER(Oldest Publisher),SPRINGER(World
Renowed Publisher/AICTE Govt. Body Recommended to the
Institutes to Subscribe),World
Academic Press(Renowed Body),Academic Journals
Online(Mother Organisation born in 1979),Philips
Publisher,Apex (Distributor) are taken in to the list of
Fake Journals.
Further, I would like to update that It is very diffcult to Challenge to
the Academician & Professional Experts from all over the world
Institutes & Industries to put the remark on his/her Research
work-contributed and which has published with his/her declaration and
Concent in term of Copy rights aswell.
Again, It is not fair to state that this is fake Journals and This
Research Journals are build up by the contribution of the different
Experts from different area of Specialisation.
I notice that AJO is also involved in a vocational skills certification
scheme ("Certified Merger and Acquisitions Analyst", "Certified Twitter
Apps Developer"). The good Dr. Rao, apparently a professor at Bharatiya
Vidyapeeth University and the author of a couple of textbooks, is also
featured in various photographs rubbing shoulders with Delhi's Minister
for Health and Family Welfare among other luminaries.
Update (2012-02-22): Here are some articles about
academic publishing scams:
Academic Journals Online is also listed in
Beall's
list of Predatory Publishers 2013.