OMICS Publishing Group

OMICS Publishing Group
Parent company OMICS Group Inc
Status Active
Founded 2007 (2007)
Founder Srinubabu Gedela
Country of origin India
Headquarters location Hyderabad
Distribution Worldwide
Publication types Open access journals
Nonfiction topics Science, technology, and medicine
Number of employees 1500[1]
Official website www.omicsonline.org

OMICS Publishing Group is a publisher of open access journals that is widely regarded as predatory.[2][3][4][5][6][7] It is part of the OMICS Group, based in Hyderabad, India.[8][5] It issued its first publication in 2008.[9] According to a 2012 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about 60 percent of the group's 200 journals had never actually published anything.[10]

Academics and the United States government have questioned the validity of peer review by OMICS journals, the appropriateness of author fees and marketing, and the apparent advertising of the names of scientists as journal editors or conference speakers without their knowledge or permission.[3][4][5][6][7] As a result, the U.S. National Institutes of Health does not accept OMICS publications for listing in PubMed Central and sent a cease-and-desist letter to OMICS in 2013, demanding that OMICS discontinue false claims of affiliation with U.S. government entities or employees.[6] OMICS has responded to criticisms by avowing a commitment to open access publishing, claiming that detractors are traditional subscription-based publishers who feel threatened by their open access publishing model,[11] and threatening a prominent critic with a US$1 billion lawsuit.[10]

Publishing activities

OMICS Publishing Group was founded in 2007 by Srinubabu Gedela,[10] who remains the company's director.[12][13] It started its first open-access journal, the Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics, in 2008.[9] In 2012, OMICS Group had more than 200 journal titles, about 60% of which had no content.[10] By 2015, it claimed over 700 titles, but an article published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation stated that "half of them are defunct, and the rest are suffering a credibility problem".[11]

OMICS operates on an open access model, wherein the author pays for publication and the publisher makes the articles available for free. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, some open access journals are legitimate, while others are vanity publications "that accept virtually any article to collect fees from the authors." There is not always a clear distinction between the two.[3] The publication fee for OMICS journals vary from the low hundreds up to $2,700. OMICS also charges a withdrawal fee (stated as 30% of the article processing charge) should a paper be withdrawn more than a week after submission.[14]

Criticism of publishing practices

OMICS has been subject to criticism from librarian and blogger Jeffrey Beall who included OMICS in his list of several hundred "potential, possible, or probable predatory" publishers that "take advantage of academics desperate to get their work published." Beall and others have "raised concerns about the practices of OMICS and the quality of its journals." They claim the journals are not actually peer-reviewed as advertised, often contain mistakes and that its fees are excessive.[10] The company says that its activities are legitimate and ethical, but that the quality of its editorial control does need improvement.[3][12]

It was also suggested that OMICS provides lists of scientists as journal editors to create the impression of familiarity or scientific legitimacy, even though these are editors in name only and are not involved in the review or editing process.[3] An editor-in-chief who was contacted by Science stated that he had never handled any papers;[6] in an interview with The Hindu, another said he had not been informed of his purported editorship.[7] Other academics have said that OMICS published articles unaltered in spite of their request for revisions.[11] The company has also been slow to remove the names of editorial board members who requested to terminate their relationship with OMICS activities, in some cases taking almost two years.[12][11]

Some observers have described the publisher as "predatory", insofar as authors who have submitted papers have been sent invoices after their manuscripts were accepted for publication despite the lack of a robust peer-review process. One author received an invoice for US$2700 after her paper was accepted; this fee was not mentioned in the email message OMICS sent her to solicit a submission.[5] These observations have led critics to assert that the main purpose of the publisher is commercial rather than academic.[3][4]

Other criticisms of OMICS include the publication of pseudoscientific articles,[3] deceptive marketing practices,[10][6] targeting of young investigators or those in lower income regions,[6][7] and the advertising of academic or government scientists as speakers or organizers for OMICS conferences without their agreement.[6] In 2012, an OMICS journal rejected a paper after the reviewer noticed it was plagiarized from a paper he had previously co-authored; another OMICS journal published the same paper later that year. When the reviewer pointed this out, the paper was removed from OMICS' website in 2014 but no official retraction posted.[15]

In 2013, an OMICS journal accepted a bogus and obviously flawed publication submitted as part of a sting operation by Science.[16][17]

Action by US government agency

In April 2013, OMICS received a cease-and-desist letter from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) after a complaint filed by Ken Witwer, who said he had been fooled by OMICS's deceptive marketing. The letter alleged that OMICS used images and names of employees that either no longer worked at NIH or did not provide their permission, and asked OMICS not to use the name of its agencies institutes or employees for anything other than "true factual statements".[6] OMICS responded by modifying its website and providing emails and letters from the NIH employees ostensibly agreeing to serve as editors of OMICS journals. Those employees later said that while they did agree to serve as editors, they did not provide permission for their names to be used in marketing materials; furthermore, they had not actually handled any manuscripts.[6] Witwer welcomed the move, saying that he was encouraged the DHHS was taking action to defend itself and the community.[6]

Legal threat to Jeffrey Beall

In 2013 OMICS Publishing Group sent a letter to Jeffrey Beall stating that they intended to sue him and were seeking $1 billion in damages. In their six-page letter, OMICS stated that Beall's blog is "ridiculous, baseless, impertinent", and "smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance".[18] Beall said that he found the letter "to be poorly written and personally threatening", and that he thought "...the letter is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS's editorial practices".[19]

OMICS' law firm said it was pursuing damages under India's Information Technology Act 2000, referring to section 66A, which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish "any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or to publish false information. It stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although a U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a "publicity stunt" that was meant to "intimidate".[10] An editorial in the New Delhi-based India Today cited the incident as evidence that Section 66A should be discarded to eliminate its use in "stifling political dissent, crushing speech and ... enabling bullying".[20]

References

  1. ↑ "Chanting success mantra, scientific way". The Hindu. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  2. ↑ Beall, Jeffrey. "The OMICS Publishing Group’s Empire is Expanding". Scholarly OA.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stratford, Michael (2012-03-04). "'Predatory' Online Journals Lure Scholars Who Are Eager to Publish". Chronicle.com. Retrieved 2012-10-02.
  4. 1 2 3 Beall, Jeffrey (2010-07-01). "Update: Predatory Open-Access Scholarly Publishers". The Charleston Advisor (Charleston.publisher.ingentaconnect.com). Retrieved 2012-10-02.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Declan Butler, "Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing", Nature, 27 March 2013
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jocelyn Kaiser, "ScienceInsider: U.S. Government Accuses Open Access Publisher of Trademark Infringement", Science, 09 May 2013
  7. 1 2 3 4 "On the Net, a scam of a most scholarly kind" The Hindu, 26 September 2012.
  8. ↑ "OMICS Publishing Group :: Contact". Omicsonline.org. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  9. 1 2 Simpson, Richard J. (April 2008). "Editorial" (PDF). Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics 1 (1): i–ii. Retrieved November 20, 2012.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jake New (May 15, 2013). "Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for $1-Billion". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Predatory publishers criticised for 'unethical, unprincipled' tactics". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 11 November 2015.
  12. 1 2 3 Gina Kolata, "Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal Checks, Too)", New York Times, 8 April 2013
  13. ↑ "Pharma Body meeting". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 22 Oct 2013.
  14. ↑ "Article Processing Charges". Retrieved 14 October 2015.
  15. ↑ Paul Jump, "Rejected work gets back in the line-up", Times Higher Education, 7 August 2014
  16. ↑ Bohannon, John (2013). "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?". Science 342 (6154): 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60. PMID 24092725.
  17. ↑ "Data and Documents". Science. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  18. ↑ New, Jake (15 May 2013). "Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for $1-Billion". Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  19. ↑ Chappell, Bill (15 May 2013). "Publisher Threatens Librarian With $1 Billion Lawsuit". NPR. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  20. ↑ Rohan Venkataramakrishnan (2013-05-19). "Send Section 66A bullies home". India Today. Retrieved 2013-05-19.

External links

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