New Publisher “South Pacific Journals” Launches with Two Subaltern Journals

Trouble in paradise.

I recently learned of an abysmally low-quality open-access publisher with the name “South Pacific Journals.” . There’s no website for the publisher itself, just websites for each of the two crummy journals.

Here are the two journals:
o South Pacific Journal of Technology and Science (SPJTS)
o South Pacific Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences (SPJPBS)

The journals both give this location information:

Jhon Mathews‚
Publisher, South Pacific Journals
Suva‚FIJI.
ceo.spj@gmail.com

I don’t know if the first name is a misspelling of “John.” Regardless, the internet domain name data tells a different story about the location:

Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Publisher Publisher
Registrant Organization: Hetero publications
Registrant Street: Hyderabad
Registrant City: hyderabad
Registrant State/Province: NA
Registrant Postal Code: 500082
Registrant Country: IN
Registrant Phone: +91.04023404033

The data indicates, that Hyderabad, India is the headquarters location. Hyderabad is a notorious Indian city, infamous as the headquarters of many predatory journals and publishers such as OMICS International and JSciMed Central. I think the Fiji location given on the journals’ websites is completely fake.

I don’t understand the strange name of the “Registrant organization” (publisher) in the domain name data.

Both journals have assigned themselves fake impact factors:

Don’t believe it.

I’d be surprised to learn that any of the articles in the two journals has ever been cited by anyone other than the authors themselves.

Their other journal.

Looking at the journals’ websites, I cannot find how much they charge for author fees. The websites are extremely amateurish, and I am surprised that each has published several issues over the past two years.

I am certain that most everyone will agree that these two journals are an affront to scholarly communication and should be avoided by all researchers.

By: Jeffrey Beall
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Source: Scholarly Open Access

Comments:

Sudesh says:

June 28, 2016 at 11:09 AM

Hi Jeffrey.

I was reading the instructions for authors of a journal “Journal of Low Power Electronics”. It says if the authors want to withdraw a manuscript after it has been accepted for publication, authors will have to pay a withdrawal penalty of $200. If they withdraw the manuscript before final decision is sent, there is no penalty.

I was wondering if this is right or wrong? On one hand it appears to be right as withdrawal of a manuscript is a loss for the journal as they are deprived of publishable manuscript; it poses an unnecessary burden on journal staff, editors and reviewers and it also forces the authors to be more careful in journal selections. On the other hand, it is an added financial burden on the authors.

So, is it justified for journals to charge some amount as withdrawal charges before decision, after decision or even after proofing stage?

Jeffrey Beall says:

June 28, 2016 at 11:52 AM

I’ll give them credit for being transparent. Most journals that charge withdrawal fees do so without prior notice.
Withdrawal fees are relatively new, I think. The ethical aspects are still being decided.

By the way, regarding the Journal of Low Power Electronics, they state, “LATEST IMPACT FACTOR: 0.526
Journal Citation Reports published by Scopus® in 2015 (Elsevier B.V.).” Something is very wrong here. First, the source for impact factors, Journal Citation Reports, is published by Thomson Reuters, not Elsevier. Also, looking at Journal Citation Reports, I do not see any impact factor for this journal.

IndRes says:

June 28, 2016 at 11:47 AM

Most papers in this journal are single authored.may be scigen ???

Steve D says:

June 28, 2016 at 8:00 PM

And so what, if papers are single authored?
I hope you were joking, otherwise if you are serious, I have doubt about your ability to judge papers or to be scientist at all.
Know that single authored papers give more credit than multi-authored papers in which many authors do not do anything but listed for honorary or decoration purposes.
When you are able to write a paper alone, this mean that you are autonomous, competent and qualified enough than if you are an X in a long list of authors.

L_C says:

June 28, 2016 at 12:20 PM

The domain registry email for SPJTS is phani.r.s.ch@gmail.com. This email is used by a researcher at K.L. University, Vijayawada:

http://www.ijpbs.net/vol-4/issue-1/pharma/46.pdf

His businesses are spread across, at the very least, 34-45 other sites:

http://domainbigdata.com/email/phani.r.s.ch@gmail.com

(This site only lists 34)

Several of these are expired. He only ran imissubaby.com for one year:

http://www.domainhistory.net/imissubaby.com

He apparently likes the tropics. One of his journals has a Jamaican address with a Caribbean theme:

Caribjbiomsci.com (though no longer in use)

When I searched for any other potentially related sites on the server/IP, I came across the domain info for Heteropubs.com (no longer in use as well). This is probably the source for the hetero Publications reference (they list the same phone number as SPJTS.)

Other info: several of his other journal sites are for Spanish speakers (e.g., actapharmica.com)

Lalitha Pasam says:

June 28, 2016 at 1:42 PM

Thank you
Well appreciated

herr doktor bimler says:

June 28, 2016 at 2:50 PM

He apparently likes the tropics.

The “Caribbean Journal of Science and Technology” is somehow up to its 4th annual issue (“Our team is based in the Jamaica”).

The Board of Editors includes Phani Raja Sekhar. CH, but clearly he is aware of the traditions and conventions of the genre, for behold, Prof. George Perry is there as well.

EDITORS

herr doktor bimler says:

June 28, 2016 at 3:40 PM

Jhon Mathews‚

FWIW, one “Dr Jhon Mathew” of Australia features in the Editorial Boards of “FIRE” (Focus in Research and Education} and “Research Desk” (an International Journal of Science and Technology). As part of two similar lists of made-up names.

Oddly enough, those two domains are not registered to Phani Raja Sekhar. CH. Instead they are in the name of reddy.vuhr@gmail.com — along with two similarly-themed journals, The Experiment Journal” and International Journal of Applied pharmaceutical sciences and Biological Sciences.

Nevertheless they are linked to Phani.r.s.ch in some way, for he turns up on the editorial board of The Experiment (along with Prof. George Perry, I am glad to say). The IJAPSBS has only 5 editors, including a “Dr Mice Snyder”.

In addition, phani.r.s.ch@gmail.com is sometimes “the FIRE group of publications” — purportedly based in Brazil, and perhaps intended for Latin-American-themed grifts — and “FIRE group of publications”> — purportedly based in Poland, possibly with Eastern European aspirations.

Back at the IJAPSBS, the archives don’t exist, only a link to the current issue. But a search for the putative ISBN leads to a few old papers that the proud authors have uploaded to academic archives… and behold, those old editions are branded as
www.ijapsbs.com Hetero Group of Journal

So I am going to go out on a limb and speculate that the two grifters are associated.

I don’t understand the strange name of the “Registrant organization” (publisher) in the domain name data.

Hetero Drugs is a large Indian pharmaceutical company specialising in mass-production of generics. Any scammer would like to piggy-back on its fame.

Tesfaye Tebeka says:

June 29, 2016 at 6:37 AM

Dear Beall,Do you have an information regarding Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences. thanks

Åsa Fyrberg says:

June 30, 2016 at 2:57 AM

Dear Dr Beall, I just received an invitation to publish a manuscript in Journal of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry. I would be grateful if you have andy knowledge about the publication, is it a part of the Austin group?
Best
Åsa Fyrberg

Jeffrey Beall says:

June 30, 2016 at 4:44 AM

There is a Journal of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry published by Vow Scientific Quest.
I have this publisher included on my list, so I would recommend that you not submit any work to its journals, including this one.

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