Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study

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1 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 23 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni Learned Publishing, 28: doi: / Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibiliometric study Introduction Jeffery Beall, an academic librarian at the University of Colorado, has consistently observed the spread of open access (OA) publishers he classifies as predatory. According to him, these publishers are exploiting the author-pays model to circulate low-quality papers to the public (Beall, 2009, 2010, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c). As at August 2012, Beall had identified 23 predatory OA publishing houses with close to 1,400 journals (see the 20 December 2012 edition: scholarlyoa.com/publishers/), as well as many stand-alone predatory OA journals ( scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/). Note that Beall s list is updated regularly, but this study was based on the list as at 31 August Nigeria features notoriously in Beall s Williams EZINWA NWAGWU opinions and analyses about sources of the University of South Africa, South Africa predatory journals (Beall, 2012a; see also Obinna OJEMENI Butler, 2013); however, only 2 of the 23 publishers in Beall s (2012b) list originated from University of Ibadan, Nigeria Nigeria: Academic Journals and International ABSTRACT. This paper presents the bibliometric Research Journals. These two publishers focus characteristics of 32 biomedical open access journals on biomedical research and they host 28 and published by Academic Journals and International 6 journals, respectively. (Note that at the time Research Journals the two Nigerian publishers in of this research two of the journals published Jeffery Beall s list of 23 predatory open access publishers by International Research Journals had not in Data about the journals and the authors of published any articles so are not considered in their articles were collected from the websites of the the analysis.) publishers, Google Scholar and Web of Science. As at We undertook a bibliometric analysis of December 2012, the journals had together produced these biomedical OA journals, covering the a total of 5,601 papers written by 5,599 authors, and period 2007 when the first issue was produced received 12,596 citations. Authors from Asia accounted and December Specifically, we wanted for 56.79% of the publications; those from Africa wrote 28.35% while Europe contributed 7.78%. Authors to know: Williams Ezinwa from Africa accounted for 18.25% of the citations these Nwagwu 1. if the journals conformed to basic publishing practice by allocating ISSNs and using of citations by authors in Asia (54.62%). At country journals received, and this is about one-third the number digital object identifiers (DOIs); level, India ranks fi rst in the top 10 citer countries, while 2. article-processing charges; Nigeria, the host country of the journals, ranked eighth. 3. periodicity; More in-depth studies are required to develop further 4. timeline of the journals; information about the journals such as how much scientifi c 5. indexation status; information the journals contain, as well as the science 6. peer-review duration; literacy of the authors and the editorial. 7. geographical distribution of contributors; 8. volume of articles published; 9. multiauthorship pattern; and Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni 2015 Obinna Ojemeni

2 24 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni 10. citation trends of the journals based on Google Scholar and Web of Science (WoS). We state here that this paper is neither designed to give support to the journals and their publishers, nor lend credence to their description as predatory; however, for benchmarking purposes, the word predatory is retained to describe the journals. It is also not our objective either to compare the publishers with each other or with others indexed in WoS or other databases. Methodology We extracted data about the journals from their websites. Next, we entered the journal titles into the Publish or Perish (PoP) software to extract the citations and h-index of the journals from Google Scholar. Then we searched the Journal Citation Report (JCR) for citation statistics of those journals in the study indexed in WoS. Finally, based on classification of countries by the World Bank (2012), the countries of affiliation of the authors were categorized as developing and developed. Findings ISSN and DOI As at December 2012, one of the 28 journals belonging to Academic Journals (Journal of Metabolomics Systems and Biology) had no ISSN. All the journals from Academic Journals have DOIs. However, the four journals from International Research Journals had no DOIs, and only two of them (International Research Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences) had ISSNs. English is the language used by both publishers. APCs of the journals Academic Journals charged an average of US$636 per article while International Research Journals charged an average of US$417 per article. Assuming that all authors paid an APC, the two publishers would have made US$3,360,500 from the 32 journals in six years. Figure 1. Periodicity of the Nigerian medical OA journals. Periodicity of the journals Figure 1 shows that the majority of journals are published monthly. Some are published weekly but more are published as the articles are deemed ready. Timeline of the journals Academic Journals stable grew from 2 journals in 2007 to 28 in Academic Journals has not added any other journals since International Research Journals initiated its academic publishing with one journal in 2010, and added two in 2011 and one in Indexation Only 2 of the 32 journals were indexed in WoS database as at 2011 (they have been removed since 2012): African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology (AJPP) and Journal of Medicinal Plants Research (JMPR). Only 1 of these 32 journals, African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, was indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). These journals are published by Academic Research Journals. All the journals from Academic Research Journals were found in Google Scholar. One journal (Journal of Dental Medicine and Medical Sciences) from International Research Journals was not found in Google Scholar, but the rest of this publisher s journals were. Peer-review time The mean number of days it takes to review articles for International Research Journals is days, while the minimum is 1 day. The high standard deviation suggests a wide variation, and therefore, a skew in the duration of peer review. Academic Journals did not indicate their peer-review cycle data.

3 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 25 Table 1. Contributions by continent to the Nigerian medical OA journals Continent Contributors Country contribution No. of papers contributed n % n % Asia Africa Europe North America South America Oceania Central America Total Others Grand total Table 1 shows that 117 countries spread across the seven continents of the world published 5,578 papers in the 32 journals; 23 papers had no author addresses. Table 2 shows that the top 10 countries accounted for 4,115 papers or 73.47% of the total. These countries are concentrated in Asia (6) and Africa (2), while Europe and South America had only one country each in the top 10. Several authors published more than one article with these journals, with nine authors publishing more than 10 articles during the period investigated. The majority of repeat authors were Chinese, but the top-producing author, with 20 articles, came from Pakistan. In respect of categorization by development Figure 2. Paper production status of the countries that published the 5,578 articles, 75 were developing countries, making largest contributions (87.3%), while developed countries contributed 12.3%. Publication volume Journals from Academic Journals produced 5,156 articles within their 28 journals, while the four International Research Journals produced a total of 445 articles during the period. Figure 2 shows that there was not much difference in the number of articles published between 2007 and 2008, but there was a significant increase from 2008 until 2011 with the highest number of publications in 2011, and a slight decrease in The top two most productive journals (Journal of Medicinal Plants Research and African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology) started publishing in 2007 (the majority of journals were launched after 2009). Significantly, these two journals were indexed by the WoS databases in 2011 and dropped in Together they accounted for 3,699 articles or 66% of authors from 117 countries published in these journals authors from developed countries contributed 12.3% articles Table 2. Top 10 contributing countries to the Nigerian medical OA journals Continent Countries No. of publications % Rank/global Africa Nigeria South Africa Asia China India Iran Pakistan Malaysia Saudi Arabia Europe Turkey South America Brazil Total

4 26 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni the journals received 12,596 citations Figure 3. Distribution of papers by authorship. the total articles published by these publishers. JMPR was the most productive, publishing a total of 2,541 articles between 2007 and 2012, followed by AJPP (1,158). Three journals not indexed in WoS (Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, International Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, and Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology) published relatively high numbers of papers during the period: 342, 294 and 186, respectively. The rest of the journals published fewer than 100 articles each. Journal of Metabolomics Systems and Biology and Journal of Cell Biolology and Genetics have the lowest total number of articles, 6 and 4, respectively, and they have no record of publication in 2012 (see Appendix). Multiauthorship Table 3. Citation of the Nigerian biomedical OA journals by continents Continents The 5,601 articles had a mean of 4.44 authors per paper (SD = 2.310). Papers with three authors accounted for 18.8% of the papers, followed closely by papers with four and five authors which accounted for 18% and 14.3%, respectively. Only 6.4% articles were singleauthored and one paper was jointly authored by 17 authors (see Figure 3). Citation trends No. of countries No. of citations Europe Africa Asia North America South America Oceania Total Based on Google Scholar, the 32 journals received a total of 12,596 citations from all continents (assessed by the addresses of the citing authors), an average of 394 citations per journal and 2.25 per paper. In respect of average citations per journal, the two journals indexed in WoS, namely JMPR and ARPP, have an average of 2.40 and 2.59 respectively, less than Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (4.85). Table 3 relates to citation statistics by continents and number of countries in the continents citing the journals. Thirteen countries in Asia that cited the journals account for 54.62% of the citations and 81% of the top 10 citations by the top 10 countries. Africa accounts for 18.25% of all the citations but % Table 4. Top 10 countries citing the Nigerian biomedical OA journals Countries No. of citations % Rank/global Asia India China Pakistan Iran Malaysia Saudi Arabia Africa South Africa Nigeria North America USA Europe Turkey Total

5 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 27 Figure 4. Pattern of citation is responsible for only 14.3% of the top 10. Europe has the largest number of countries, 18, citing the journals, but these countries account only for 16.92% of the total citations and only Turkey was in the top 10. South and North America made 3.10% and 6.71% of the total citations, while Australia made only one citation. None of the countries in Central America cited the journals under study. Table 4 presents the citations by top 10 countries. The top 10 countries made 65.75% of the overall citations (2,772). The top five (of the top ten) countries, namely India (18.13%), China (16.21%), Pakistan (13.09%), Iran (10.63%), and Malaysia (9.69%), are all from Asia. The USA (7th) also cited the journals more than Nigeria (8th) did. An intriguing result is that, among the citers of the Nigerian OA biomedical journals, South Africa ranked 6th globally and first in Africa, higher than Nigeria, the host country of the journals. Figure 4 shows a steady growth in citations from 230 in 2007 to 1,388 citations in 2008, rising to a peak in 2009 with a total of 4,063 citations, before declining in In 2010, the journals recorded a total of 2,666 citations while in 2011 an increase to 3,146 citations was recorded, before a significant decline started in 2012, down to 1,103 citations. Altogether, the 5,601 papers had 12,596 citations. We show in the Appendix that JMPR received amazing and consistent volumes of citations during (6,112) even in the year of its debut (2007). The citations reached their peak in 2011 and declined in 2012 to less than one-third of the previous year. AJPP s citation (3,002) tends were more in line with what might be expected: it was not cited in the year of its debut, but thereafter received consistent but high level of citations which quickly reached its peak two years after debut (2009) and then started declining. These are the only two Nigeria biomedical OA journals indexed in WoS. They also have the highest h-index values. Accounting for 9,119 citations, these two journals were responsible for 72% of the 12,596 citations attributable to the whole list of journals published by these two publishers. Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences received heavy citations in its year of debut, but declined fast thereafter. International Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences received a very few citations in its year of debut, but rose in 2009 and declined in publication and citation decreased after 2011 Table 5. Top 10 journals in WoS citing AJPP and JMPR Name of citing journal Citations to JPP and JMPR Total no. of citations Journal of Ethnopharmacology Molecules BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine PLOS ONE Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Pakistan Journal of Botany Industrial Crops and Products International Journal of Pharmacology Scientifi c World Journal African Journal of Traditional Complementary and Alternative Medicine Total

6 28 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni citation and authorship did not come from the same countries The rest of the journals received various numbers of citations, but a feature common to all the journals is that their citations declined after Journal of Cell Biology and Genetics and Journal Dental Medicine and Medical Sciences have received no citations (see the Appendix). Altogether, 54 journals listed in WoS cited two of the journals, AJPP and JMPR, 1,195 times. Table 5 relates to the top 10 journals and shows that the top 10 citing journals in WoS made 453 citations to AJPP and JMPR, representing 0.26% of their total citations. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, a Netherlandsbased journal, cited the Nigerian journals the most (119), followed by Molecule (60), a US-based chemistry journal. Only one of the journals, African Journal of Traditional Complementary and Alternative Medicine, is of African origin, and only BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine and PLOS ONE are OA journals. It should be noted that the majority of citations for AJPP and JMPR came from themselves (194 and 123, respectively). Discussion It should be restated that our aim in this study was not to find out whether the Nigerian biomedical OA journals under study are actually predatory or not, rather we aim to provide face-value bibliometric information about the journals. It can be observed that all the journals publish frequently ranging from per-article to monthly. How does one interpret this observation? Altbach and Rapple (2012) allude to increasing pressure on scholars worldwide to publish in English-language internationally circulated journals indexed in globally respected indexes databases such as WoS. These journals have been inundated by submissions and many of them accept 10% or fewer submissions. Scholars who cannot publish in these journals must look elsewhere. In terms of volume, most of these journals report large numbers of papers published the leader in terms of volume, JMPR, started with as few as 20 publications in 2007, but produced 1,035 in 2011, an indication of a high level of acceptance of the journal by authors. It should be noted, however, that this journal had an initial impact factor from the WoS in 2011, which was later lost in 2012 when it was removed from WoS. Furthermore, could the high volume of articles be due to the nature and focus of the journal on traditional and indigenous knowledge, an aspect of human knowledge in which developing countries are the focus? Although there exist other journals in developed countries that address medicinal plants (e.g. Journal of Ethnopharmacology), the volume of papers in JMPR may suggest a growing area of research for researchers from developing countries. Besides JMPR and Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, however, many of the other journals appear not to be heavily patronized. The journals in this study are not currently indexed in WoS databases but are indexed Google Scholar, which picks the majority of journals published online. The journals therefore rely on online search to be visible to prospective readers. In respect of peer review, it was not possible to ascertain peer-review data from the largest publisher, Academic Journals; therefore, it is not possible to determine the level, quality, and timeliness of its reviewing systems. The time taken by International Research Journals was in line with other journals. The Nigerian journals in this study have grown very fast, particularly those previously indexed in WoS, receiving articles from 117 countries of the world, including developed countries. Although Nigeria ranks first among other countries in terms of number of papers published in the journals, the individuals making the largest contributions come from India and China. Poor organization and co-ordination of science may explain Nigerian authors use of potentially predatory journals, but does not explain why South Africa ranks next to Nigeria in Africa in respect of volume of papers published in the journals. There is no authority list of journals in which scholars must publish in Nigeria, but South Africa recommends and strictly abides by assessing their scholars with papers published in journals indexed in WoS databases, International Bibliography of Social Sciences and a list of journals accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Technology in South Africa (Ministry of Education, 2003). A further examination is required to unravel whether the 136 publications from South Africa in the journals

7 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 29 appeared in the two journals that are indexed in WoS to justify their use. Contrary to Jeffery Beall, who said that 2012 is the year of the predatory publishers (Beall 2013a), the journals in this analysis actually started to decline in 2012, having reached their peaks in The largest number of journals was established by Academic Journals in 2009, the year International Research Journals debuted. The decline observed in 2012 could be attributed to the blacklisting of these publishers by Beall and other scholars (Vardi, 2012; Stratford, 2012; Pittson, 2013; Sharma, 2013). Although African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and a few other journals gained some advantage in terms of volume of publications in 2012, the general picture shows an indication that the journals have declined after The citation pattern of the journals evokes some curiosity. Asia, the major producer of articles in the journals also made the largest number of citations, but the number of countries in Asia that cited the journals was fewer than those that participated in article production. In Europe, the number of countries that cited the journals was half of those that wrote the papers, but the number of citations was larger than the papers. The citation volume in other continents was less than the number of papers they published in the predatory journals. For example, fewer African countries made fewer citations than the number of countries in the region that wrote papers that were published in the journals. Generally, though, more authors are publishing in the journals than those citing the journals, although those who cite the journals do so much heavily. With specific respect to citation by countries, India cites the papers in these journals more than the host country Nigeria, although Nigeria contributed more papers than other countries. By ranking eighth globally and second regionally behind South Africa and USA, Nigeria is not a major citer of the papers contributed by its scholars in the OA journals. An interesting inference emerges. Authors from Asia and Africa accounted for more papers published in the journals than they did for the citations the journals received. Contrarily, authors from Europe did not publish in the Nigerian journals as much as they cited them. Hence authors in Europe appear to have a tendency to reflect the situations in the peripheries in their research, but the outcome of such research is not necessarily published in journals at the peripheries. However, there is strong speculation that authors in Africa and Asia also reflect the situations in Europe and other developed areas in their research but they publish their research findings in their own journals. Unlike publication production, citations dropped generally after 2009 however, since the peak in publication took place in 2011 it is surprising, and possibly a reflection of distrust in the content, that citations dropped in Many articles (and journals) published during the period did not receive any citations. The two journals indexed in WoS performed very well in terms of citations they received. Fiftyfour mainstream journals citing two recent journals 1,195 times is a record that requires further study. Assuming that all or most of the authors pay the stated APC, then both publishers are receiving substantial incomes. However, their charges remain low compared to many developed country OA journals (Truth, 2012). Free online availability of papers substantially increases paper s impact is the title of a paper by Lawrence (2001), which dealt with citation of online papers generally. He posited that the higher the quantity of papers published by journals, the higher the likelihood that wider subjects are touched, thus possibly attracting a larger number of citers. OA publishing will exacerbate this observation. Another study that focused on OA much later found that with the advent of the digital age, the strength of the relation between impact factors and paper citations has been decreasing (Lozano, Lariviere and Gingras, 2012). In a recent study, Acharya et al. (2014) have found that the fraction of highly cited articles published in non-elite journals increased steadily over While the elite journals still publish a substantial fraction of high-impact articles, many more authors of well-regarded papers in a diverse array of research fields are choosing other venues. They also found that discovering and reading relevant articles in non-elite journals is now about as easy as finding and reading articles in elite journals, for which reason researchers are increasthe range of citation indicates widespread use of the journals

8 30 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni a large number of authors are looking for channels to publish their work established journals may be too elitist or too slow ingly building on and citing work published everywhere. Implications of the findings of this study The findings of this study have implications both for the classification of these journals as predatory and for science communication globally. The large number of papers published and the citations the papers received as well as widespread use of those two Nigerian journals indexed in WoS for just a short time ( ) is very significant. These journals only started publishing in 2007, but they have been able to attract a huge number of authors who both published papers in them and also cited them. For many years, scholars from Africa have pointed to the low inclusion of African journals in WoS databases as a major explanation for the low volume of publications often recorded for the countries in the region (Nwagwu, 2006). The findings in this study underpin that observation i.e. there is considerably more publishing activity in Africa and other developing regions than is known in the world. The reason for this observation is because the knowledge about science in the world generally comes from the indexes of WoS, the indexing mechanisms of which favour the developed world (Mereghini and Packer, 2007). It is of interest that the volume of articles from both developed and developing countries to these (predatory) journals is relatively high. This suggests that there are a large number of authors looking for channels to publish their work, who find the existing accredited journals either too elitist or too slow (Solomon, 2007). Perhaps the existing, high-quality, journal environment is too difficult to negotiate for either early researchers, or those for whom dealing in English language is a problem. Perhaps those looking to publish are able to pay relatively low amounts for publication, but are unable to pay the higher amounts demanded by traditional OA journals. Also, the heavy citation received by these journals means that the journals are being read and that their contents are being found useful by scholars in different places: the journals are serving real human needs for knowledge production and consumption. Truth (2012) suggests that OA is adjusting the constellations and grip of knowledge power and enterprise in the world. Increasingly, research produced on what is regarded as the periphery is beginning to appear visible to the world, often in journals that may be considered outside the acceptable criteria for publishing. One criticism of the author-pays model of OA is the possible inability of authors in the developing world to bear the APCs. Our findings prove this fear wrong. It is significant that authors from low-income countries such as India, Senegal, Cameroun, as well as those from war-torn countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, DR Congo are willing to pay in order to publish their research findings in journals that have been classed as predatory. Related to this is the scepticism that scientific information produced in developing regions might have insufficient market value (Nwagwu, 2006). The current high patronage of the Nigerian journals and their continuous retention and use by authors from around the world, irrespective of heavy criticisms and calls for boycott, prove this cynicism to be wrong. A major advantage of the developed countries in global knowledge power relations is the high volume of scientific information they produce and index. The predatory OA journals are also beginning to generate high volumes of scientific information from the emerging regions. With India, China and Latin American countries establishing their local citation indexes, indexation activities are also growing in the developing regions, some of which are major users of the Nigerian journals. These indexes will probably include publications in the journals tagged predatory, but their influence in the statistics of publications in these countries will surely be very significant. Beyond the eight points of weakness of these journals as contained in Beall s list of predatory journals, the journals might include sincere initiatives that are at their earliest stages of development and might therefore require some time and encouragement to evolve. It is remarkable that these journals are produced in low-income and low-technology environments and probably by people with low technology skills. For example, in the whole of Africa, country top-level domains are used mainly in South Africa and Botswana,

9 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 31 while others use proprietary addresses (e.g. Yahoo) for communication (Waweru and Sakwa, 2012), and this one of Beall s criteria for assessing predatory journals. The presentation, packaging and quality of these journals may not match those of the developed world and these journals are not alone in publishing fake science (Shekman, 2013; Marcus and Oransky, 2014). Warhurst is a malaria researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Editor-in-chief of Malaria Chemotherapy, Control and Elimination, an OA journal on Beall s list. In response to questions about the inclusion of his journal in Beall s list, Warhurst said certainly I do not believe that this is a toxic journal (Butler, 2013), and so may be many journals which have been condemned as predatory. Warhurst observed that his journal was still in its launch phase and defended his journal to say that the papers in the journal had new findings or findings useful in their geographical context, but needed help with presentation mainly language and analysis. Warhurst s advice supports Nwagwu s (2006) observation that science is ecological and contextual content, subject matter, methodologies, etc., respond to social and environmental reality. Some concluding remarks In view of the foregoing implications, there is need for further studies of these Nigerian publishers beyond descriptive bibliometric examination. What is the exact mission of these journals and who are the new journal managers and editors? How fraudulent or how good are the research outputs of the predatory journals? Are there reliable and useful research findings published in these journals? How much knowledge is contained in these journals? These questions have been raised by Lim (2011) and Xin and Hao (2011). It will also be good to know if peer review is being corrupted by these new journals as suggested by Beall (2012a) and Harzing (2012). This is because a mean of about 50 days duration in peer review of articles published by International Research Journals suggests that some peer review is taking place. Moreover, there is strong evidence that peer-review duration can be reduced in a Web-based publishing regime (Solomon, 2007; Laakso and Bjork, 2012). Solomon has shown that long peer-review duration contributes immensely to the mean 18-month duration from submission of a paper to its publication, and suggests that this is unhealthy for science. This observation is important because OA journal critics such as Beall (2012) and Harzing (2012) imply that the short duration of peer review in the OA regime of publishing is an indication of low-quality science. Beall himself accepts this surmise when he stated that his criteria for categorizing these publishers as fake are subjective and that there is no objective way to measure new OA journals, especially when the publisher lacks transparency and hides its operations. According to him: We can t measure how well they re doing their peer review or if they re doing it at all. So the only way to judge them is by gathering all the information you can from their web sites, from talking to them, from reading s from people who have worked with them or submitted articles to them and combine all of that information and complete the analysis. And it is subjective. (Beall in an interview with Wilson, 2013) Beall also stated: Generally, when I get a request to pull a publisher from my list, I ll do a reanalysis of the publisher, because they change over time. They can get better. There s been about a half a dozen or so that I ve removed from my list in the past year (Wilson, 2013). Classing all the journals together as fake may therefore be injurious to possible budding publishing projects whose operations might be hampered by low technology, and by poor facilities and infrastructures and skills. Strikingly, scholars who are located in countries that have authority lists or recommended sources where publications are expected to appear (e.g. South Africa) also published in the Nigerian journals. In countries where research co-ordination is poor or non-existent and there is no authority lists or recommended sources, the likelihood that young and other scholars will resort to the predatory and other new journals will be very high. This is the situation in Nigeria where authors put their papers wherever they choose, and then list such papers for assessment and promotion (although many Nigerian universities have how fraudulent or good are these new journals? authors are willing to pay but lower amounts than western journals charge

10 32 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni these journals will have impact throughout the world a rule that scholars should publish a certain percentage of papers offshore, there are generally no authority lists of where to publish). But in places where publications outside the recommended sources receive no credit, anyone who publishes in sources outside the recommended ones or sets up publishing houses whose products are not included in the lists should have no business. This is expected to be the case in the USA and South Africa, for instance. What, then, are the motives of authors from the USA and South Africa to publish their papers in the Nigerian predatory journals? Are they simply claiming affiliation with institutions in these countries, and what would be the benefit of such scams? Or, are they citizens of countries where no recommended list exists, but are presently living in South Africa or the USA? In respect of money, people in developing countries are conscious that scientific publishing could be a great source of income, as inferred from the wealth of multinational publishing houses. These and other factors are capable of goading people to initiate startup (used by Truth, 2012), sloppy (according to Beall in an interview with Wilson, 2013), fake (according to Harzing, 2012) or predatory (Beall, 2009, 2010, 2012a,b, 2013a,b) publishing initiatives. Truth has stated that: The race to publish, the quest for individual prestige, social and financial recognition characterize scientific endeavor as a material social practice in a system grounded on an ideology of markets, capital, commodification of knowledge products and the surplus value of knowledge creation. (Truth, 2012: 22). This study also points to the possible state of science in the world. Nwagwu (submitted) alludes to the metastasizing publish-or-perish syndrome which piles pressure on academia globally as partly accountable for spawning an exponentially growing number of academic e-journals. Publish or perish has converted the university teacher to an entrepreneur who builds up his or her portfolio (or CV) to attract investors to hire his/her skills. The dynamic ensemble of cybertechnology has fused with the managerial university and its dictates for performance tied to publications, together resulting in a publication tsunami. Truth (2012) has observed that the predatory journals will mainly attract and exploit lesserprivileged academics such as scholars at their early stages of career, and others who are on the knowledge production peripheries. Finally, the startup or predatory journals will have a great impact in scholarship throughout the world generally, and in the low-income economies specifically. Generally, academic science is undergoing a revolution Solomon and Björk (2011) have recognized that there is paradigm shift in scientific publishing. Before the emergence of the online journals, Gibbons et al. (1994) had noted the emergence of a new mode of knowledge production qualitatively different from standard academic science as it was known. There is need for academies, professional societies, and institutions to control where authors publish their papers. However, OA publishing is still evolving, and there is need for open-mindedness over the evolution of OA journals, while checking abuses that might have dangerous consequences for society. References Acharya, A., Verstak, A., Suzuki, H., Henderson, S., Lakhiaev, H., Lin, C.C.Y., and Shetty, N. Rise of the Rest: The Growing Impact of Non-Elite Journals (2014), originally published on Google Scholar, available at (accessed 4 November 2014). Altbach, P.G. and Rapple, B Anarchy and commercialism. Inside Higher Education, 8 March, essay-problems-state-journal-publishing Beall, J. Beall s list of predatory open access publishers, 2012 edition. Available at: (accessed 23 July 2013). Beall, J Bentham open. The Charleston Advisor, 11(1): Beall, J Predatory open-access scholarly publishers. The Charleston Advisor, 11(4): Beall, J. 2012a. Predatory publishers are corrupting open access. Nature, 489(7415): org/ /489179a Beall, J. 2013a. Predatory publishers threaten to erode scholarly communication. Science Editor, 36(1): Beall, J. 2013b. Medical publishing triage chronicling predatory open access publishers. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 2(2): S (13) Butler, D. 2013a. Sham journals, scam authors. Nature, 495(7442): org/ /495421a Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., and Trow, M. The New Production of Knowledge:

11 Penetration of Nigerian predatory biomedical open access journals : a bibliometric study 33 The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London, Sage, Harzing, A. Predatory Open Access Journals: Academics Beware! Presentation at the 2012 BARDSnet Meeting, Melbourne, available at: (accessed 4 June 2013). Laakso, M. and Björk, B.-C Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure. BMC Medicine, 10: org/ / Lawrence, S Free online availability substantially increases a paper s impact. Nature Web Debates, Lim, L Plagiarism plague hinders China s scientific ambition. Asian Pacific Forum on Educational Integrity Blogpost, (accessed 16 November 2014). Lozano, G.A., Larivière, V., and Gingras, Y The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers citations in the digital age. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(11): Marcus, A. and Oransky, I Retractions are coming thick and fast: it s time for publishers to act. The Guardian, 14 July science/blog/2014/jul/14/retractions-journal-publishersscientific-papers-peer-review Meneghini, R. and Packer, A.L Is there science beyond English? EMBO Reports, 8(2): dx.doi.org/ /sj.embor Ministry of Education. Policy and Procedures for Measurement of Research Output of Public Higher Education Institutions. Government Gazette, 11: no Pretoria, Ministry of Education, Nwagwu, W.E. Organising and monitoring research production and performance in Africa: towards Africa Citation Index. Presented at the International Conference on Bridging the North South Divide in Scholarly Communication in the South: Threats and Opportunities in the Digital Era, organised by Council for the Development of Social Science in Africa (CODESRIA) and African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, 6 8 September Nwagwu, W.E. (submitted). Tensions and contentions in the open access arena: Implications for science in Africa. Pittson, C Open access and predatory publishers. Available at: open-access-and-predatory-publishers/ (Accessed 17 June 2013). Schekman, R How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science, The Guardian, 9 December dec/09/how-journals-nature-science-cell-damage-science Sharma, Y Suspect journals take scientists for a ride. SciDevNet, 21 January global/ethics/feature/-suspect-journals-take-scientists-fora-ride.html Solomon, D The role of peer review for scholarly journals in the information age. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 10(1)e. Solomon, D.J. and Björk, B Publication fees in open access publishing: sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal preprint. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(8): /asi Stratford, M Predatory online journals lure scholars who are eager to publish. Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 March. Available at: Predatory-Online-Journals/131047/ Truth, F Pay big to publish fast: academic rackets. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 10(2): Vardi, M.Y Predatory scholarly publishing. Communications of the ACM, 55(7): org/ / Waweru, K. and Sakwa M Kenya s country code top level domain; policy factors in domain structure that hamper its uptake and use within the local internet community. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(14). Vol_2_No_14_Special_Issue_July_2012/24.pdf (accessed 16 November 2014). Wilson, K Librarian vs. (open access) predator: an interview with Jeffrey Beall. Serials Review, 39(2): Xin H Fraud takes the shine off rising star. IOP Asia-Pacifi c, 15 September. (accessed 17 November 2014). Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu University of South Africa Department of Information Science Theo Van Wijk Building, Room Preller Street Mucleneuk Ridge, Pretoria PO Box 392, UNISA, 0003, South Africa nwagwwe@unisa.ac.za Obinna Ojemeni Africa Regional Centre for Information Science University of Ibadan Nigeria oojemeni@yahoo.com

12 34 Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu and Obinna Ojemeni Appendix: Number of papers produced and number of citations received by the Nigerian biomedical OA journals Journal name a No. of papers No. of citations Average cites/paper H-index APC Per article Total income ($) b Journal of Medicinal Plants Research African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology Journal of Medicine and Medical Science International Journal of Medicine Medical Sciences Journal of Physiology and Pathophysiology Journal of Dentistry Oral Hygiene Research Journal of Pharmacy Biotechnology Journal of Toxicology Environment and Health Science Journal of Clinical Medical Research International Journal of Nursing and Midwifery International Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism Journal of AIDS and HIV Research Journal of Infectious Diseases and Immunity Journal of Pharmacognosy Phytotherapy Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health Research in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology International Research Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology Journal of Diabetics and Endocrinology Journal of Medicine and Genetics Journal of Medicine and Laboratory Diagnosis Journal of Parasitology Vector Biology Clinical Review Opinions Journal of Cancer Research and Experimental Oncology Journal of Clinical and Immunology and Immunopathology Research Journal of Clinical Pathology and Forensic Medicine Journal of Metabolomics Systems Biology Journal Neuroscience Behavioural Health International Research Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Medical Case Studies Medical Practice Review Journal of Cell Biology and Genetics Journal of Dentistry, Medicine and Medical Sciences Total a The two journals, International Research Journal of Basic Clinical Studies and International Research Journal Bioengineering and Medical Sciences, had not been published at the time of this study, so are not included. b Assuming that APCs were paid for all articles.