I just got an email from someone named Simon Jones, offering to publish an article about my research in a publication called International Innovations. Here's their website. They appear to be an online publisher of articles about advances in health care research. Oops, no that was just their health care branch. They have other branches, for Energy, Environment, Nanomaterials etc. You can see the whole list here. They claim to be 'The Leading Global Dissemination Resource'. (Red text is my highlighting.)
They describe what they publish as 'open access journals', but they're certainly not peer reviewed. Instead they're collections of puff pieces, intended to make the researcher look good.
The first part of the email was followed by a long collection of lists, of researchers they have written about, topics they've covered, institutions and countries that subscribe, etc. Far too long to include here. And after that comes the details:
So the deal is: For a fee of £1960 (about $3000) they prepare a 3-page glossy article about how great my research is, based on 2-3 hr of input from me. They apparently do the writing and prepare the figures, and they publish it in their slick online magazine, and perhaps in a glossy paper edition too. I own the rights, so I can then splash this article around in any way I like - send it to my Dean, post it on my web page, print a glossy brochure to hand out...
Given the copyright promise, it's a bit surprising to see this statement in each issue:
Copyright reproduction in whole or part by any means without written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden. The publisher accepts no responsibility for errors, omissions, or the consequences thereof. The opinions expressed in International Innovation are those of the individual and not endorsed by Research Media. Copyright Research Media.It's also odd that they claim copyright but disclaim any responsibility for the content.
And maybe it's not surprising that the published material nowhere indicates that the researchers being profiled paid for their profiles.
I got one of those, too. Tried to find out more about them. They have a fancy website with fancy graphics, but no track record that I can find. They certainly knew about me: talked about the grant they wanted to profile, etc. And they had some influential people listed on the (very long) list of people they had profiled. Guess its a way to make a crust....
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