Becoming an editor. Not.

Recently, I got two invitations to become an editor for two journals (at the same day). At first I was very surprised and willing to accept the offer.

However, some details seemed somewhat suspect to me. I did a little research on the web and found out that many others got invitation scam. So, I was on guard.

The first offer was from VRJ Publishers for the Journal of Bioinformatics Research Studies:

Dear Dr. Sven Kochmann,

Greetings,

This letter is an invitation for you to participate as an Editor/ Reviewer of Journal of Bioinformatics Research Studies.

Journal of Bioinformatics Research Studies is a peer reviewed Open Access Journal endeavored to comprehend research and development in the field of Bioinformatics.

The journal aims to publish high quality original research papers, viewpoint articles, technical papers, conceptual papers, case studies, literature reviews and general reviews in the field of Bioinformatics.

If you are interested, kindly send your C.V. and keywords of research interest which will appear on our journal website.

We look forward to hear from you.

Regards,

Editorial Office

Journal of Bioinformatics Research Studies

http://jbrsonline.com/

I had a look at the journal page, which has only few content and — except for a single editorial letter about H/D exchange of proteins — there are no published articles at the moment. The first issue will be published in July filled with content from the editors. Subsequent issues (with papers from other authors) are planned.

I declined (ignored) the invitation, because of several reasons: The first thing I notice was that the editorial office (and also the publisher) use gmail-addresses and the invitation was just signed by ‘editorial office’. The email was not personal. So, I assumed this was just an automatically generated mail. The publisher address is some flat in Hyderabad, India (neither Bing or Google were able to find the exact address). Also, the journals of this publisher (only two at the moment) have no ISSN. Even very small niche journals such as the Journal of Tea Science Research have one. Additionally, some of the members such as Prof. Andrzej Kloczkowski are associated with other journals by questionable publishers (OMICS Publishing Group in this case).

Just to be fair: I do not know if this journal or its publisher is questionable. I will ask Jeffrey Beall for his oppinion, though.

The second invitation I got was from the Austin Journal of Analytical & Pharmaceutical chemistry by the Austin Publishing Group:

Dear Dr. Sven Kochmann,

Greetings for the day!!

In keeping view of your eminent contributions in the field of Analytical chemistry. We would like to invite you to join us as an Editorial Board Member of the Austin Journal of Analytical & Pharmaceutical chemistry.

Aims & Scope: Austin Journal of Analytical & Pharmaceutical chemistry is a peer reviewed, open access, academic journal that brings ground breaking investigations, improvements and creation of new drugs in drugs and intermediates, drug chemistry, sampling, bioanalysis, electrochemistry, mass spectrometry, microscale and nanoscale systems and structures, environmental analysis, separations, spectroscopy, chemical reactions and selectivity, instrumentation, imaging, surface analysis, data processing,
pharmacological, toxicological, and biochemical studies. We are ardent to promote, pragmatic, rigorous reproducible research and scientific progress through open access platform.

If you are interested, kindly provide your short C.V., full contact details along with expertise keywords of your ongoing research work.

I will be looking forward to receiving your expression of interest.

Best Regards;

Rebecca Williams
Editorial manger
Editorial office- Austin Journal of Analytical & Pharmaceutical chemistry

Austin Publishing Group

3126 Riverside Station Blvd
Secaucus,
New Jersey 07094, USA
Tel: 201-655-707

For more information:
www.austinpublishinggroup.com

This is not a spam email, if you do not wish to receive any email in the
future from this journal, please reply with unsubscribe on the subject line.

This publisher is on Bell’s list of questionable publisher, becausethis publisher is deceptive — it claims that it’s from Australia when it’s really based in India’. They provided an address in New Jersey in their email, though.

IMHO, there are other reasons why they on this list such as a large fleet of journals (with similar homepages) and insufficient information about author fees. Finally, I declined (ignored) this invitation, too.

So, no new editor position for me (yet). 🙂

2 thoughts on “Becoming an editor. Not.

  1. AvatarNauman

    I have given an article to Austin Publishing group but now i have realized they may not be the best choice after reading your comments…will my publication be acceptable worldwide as it is now send and accepted??

    1. Sven KochmannSven Kochmann Post author

      Actually, I do not know. I would guess not. Mabye you should ask Jeffrey Beall!

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