Questionable practices in Scholarly Publishing: the Stance of the ISSN network

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Questionable Practices in Scholarly Publishing:the Stance of the ISSN Network

Gaëlle BéquetDirector

ISSN International Centre

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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The ISSN Network Today

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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The ISSN International Register- 1,884,900 records describing serials and

continuing resources both print and digital- 73,834 records added in 2015 (from 69,262

in 2005 and 66,171 in 2010)- 177,601 digital serials with ISSN in 2015- 22,610 records for digital serials in 2015

(from 6934 in 2005 and 11,429 in 2010)

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Open Access: Our new Challenges (1)

2002: Budapest Declaration2003: Bethesda Statement on Open Access

Publishing2003: Berlin Declaration on Open Access to

Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Directory of Open Access Scholarly ResourcesIFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Key Figures about ROAD: Content

- 257 Academic repositories- 145 Conference proceedings - 14633 Journals- 231 Monographic series- 709 Scholarly blogs

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Key Figures about ROAD: Usage

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

User queries between May and December 2015

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Open Access: Our new Challenges (2)

What happened in 2012?- Inception of ROAD and… - Emergence of « predatory publishing "

What was the impact to the ISSN Network ?

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Open Access: Our new Challenges (2)The development of active predatory open access

journals from 2010 to 2014 (Shen, Björk, 2015)

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Open Access: Our new Challenges (2)The distribution of predatory OA publishers (n = 

656) by geographic regions (Shen, Björk, 2015)

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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The ISSN network and Questionable Publishers

ISSN stands for identification, not for quality assessment.

How do ISSN National centres proceed when faced with questionable practices?

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Promoting Ethics in Open Access Publishing

The link between questionable practices in publishing and the Open Access movement is not that obvious…

Fraud in publishing is as old as the hills…Education is key to improving publishing

practices and enlightening authors…

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio

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Think. Check. Submit.Help researchers identify trusted journalsA simple checklist to assess credentialsHelp ensure a body of quality scholarly literature

What?i

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More research is being published worldwideNew journals launched each weekCan be a challenge to find up-to-date guidanceStories of malpractice

& deception on the rise

Why?i

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Journal has lower or no profile among peers> Few or no citations

Paper not indexed or archived> Difficult or impossible for peers to find

Poor publishing experience> Work not adequately reviewed or edited

Damaged reputation

Implicationsi

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! Are you submitting to a trusted journal?! Is it the best one for your work?

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Do you or your colleagues know the journal? Can you easily identify and contact the publisher? Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses? Are articles indexed in the services you use? Is it clear what fees will be charged? Do you recognize the editorial board? Is the publisher a member of a

recognized industry initiative?

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>Only if you can answer ‘yes’ to all or most of these questions

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www.thinkchecksubmit.org

feedback@thinkchecksubmit.org@TCS_Campaign #thinkchecksubmit

Interested?i

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ALPSPBioMed CentralDOAJ INASP ISSNLIBEROASPASPARC

Springer NatureSTMUbiquity PressUKSG

Who?Who?i

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• Visit: thinkchecksubmit.org, sign-up for news

Researchers: use the list, tell us what you thinkLibrarians: add check list to faculty resourcesAll: submit your FAQs via #thinkchecksubmitPublishers…

Get involvedi

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Publishers: – link to thinkchecksubmit.org from your website– blog about the campaign– include in your talks– add to your workshops– add to your eTOCs

Get involvedi

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Thank you!

gaelle.bequet@issn.orgwww.issn.orgroad.issn.org

ISSNInternationalCentre@ISSN_IC

IFLA – Session 114 – The Role of Stakeholders in the New Serials World - August 15th, 2016 – Columbus, Ohio