Hoax Article Accepted by 'Peer-Reviewed'; OA Bentham Journal
Does this raise more questions about author-pays models or this publisher?
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 06/11/2009
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- Article credited to Center for Research in Applied Phrenology
- Bentham claims one-time error
- Payment models require new vigilance, say hoaxers
In an Open Access (OA) version of the 1996 Sokal affair, when a hoax article was accepted by an academic 
journal, Cornell University librarian and graduate student Phil Davis successfully submitted a manuscript full of gibberish and credited to pseudonymous authors at The Center for Research in Applied Phrenology to The Open Information Science Journal (TOISCIJ), which “claims to enforce peer-review.”
Davis chose the journal “[a]fter being spammed with invitations to publish in Bentham Science journals earlier this year.”
In April 2008, British journalist Richard Poynder reported on Bentham’s ambitious strategy to launch 200 OA journals and the negative reaction to its recruitment of contributors, especially given that many researches were solicited for publications outside their expertise.
(One apparent solicitation—though its provenance is not clear—has varying font sizes and typefaces, suggesting a cut-and-paste aspect to the recruitment of editorial board members.)
Reaction
While Bentham’s U.S. representative did not respond to a query from Library Journal, its United Arab Emirates-based subscription manager told the Chronicle of Higher Education that it was one-time error (and said no one else would comment).
One commenter on Scholarly Kitchen, Jeppe Nicolaisen, wrote that he long ago withdrew from the TOISCIJ’s “so-called editorial board because I felt something was wrong” and said he was “a bit shocked” to see his name still on the board.
(Another Bentham editor resigned in April after Bentham published a controversial article about 9/11 without her knowledge.)
Library holdings
According to WorldCat, the journal appears in the catalogs of four North American academic libraries (University of Iowa, Florida Atlantic University, University of Alberta, and Oregon State University), as well as five libraries in Australia and libraries in Qatar and Hong Kong.
The implications
Davis received confirmation four months after submission not from an editor but from Sana Mokarram, the Assistant Manager of Publication, who requested that he pay the $800 author fee. He then retracted the manuscript, titled “Deconstructing Access Points.”
He previously had tried to submit another fake manuscript to a different Bentham publication, The Open Software Engineering Journal; it was rejected, though the publisher encouraged him to suggest board members and submit another manuscript.
Davis concluded, “While one should be careful not to generalize these results to other Open Access journals using similar business models, it does raise the question of whether, at least in some cases, the producer-pays-to-publish model may unduly influence editorial decision-making. One may also question whether publishers like Bentham see a lucrative opportunity from the OA movement, considering that academic libraries are establishing author publication funds to pay Open Access charges.”
His partner in the project, Kent Anderson, executive director of international business and product development at the New England Journal of Medicine, commented separately on Scholarly Kitchen, advising, “It's important that everyone in academic publishing realize there is a feeder issue at play -- the swelling pools of author-pays funding, how they're being managed, and policies around their use.”
He suggested that blaming publishers is too easy, but rather “it may be the administrators of the funding who have shown an Achilles' heel--lax oversight, a lack of transparency, motivations to support the "publish or perish" culture of academia today, and an inability to hold publishers accountable for services rendered.”
In debate
Peter Suber, an OA advocate, noted on his blog widespread suspicion about Bentham, noting that Bentham Editorial Director Matthew Honan would not tell Poynder who owns the company.
“The question is whether we're dealing with a very weak journal or with something larger,” Suber wrote, noting that many more traditional journals charge author-side fees.
“Anderson is right that institutions paying publishers should take responsibility to monitor how their money is spent,” he observed. “But the principle is a general one.”
Tom Wilson, publisher and editor-in-chief of the free journal Information Research, suggested that any process in which money changes hands is flawed.
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