Wednesday, June 29, 2011

"We are pleased to invite you....."

The recent trend toward open access science publishing has yielded a very uneven crop of journals. We do have a few respected Open Access-only publications with high quality research (PLoS ONE and many titles on BioMedCentral) but there is also a very large number of publishing firms that email researchers to solicit submissions to brand new Open Access journals. I have received several of these emails, which always claim to have selected me because of my expertise on the topic even though I have often not published anything on it, or even on related subjects. So far, I have received requests to submit reviews to:

  • a special issue on protein biogenesis in "Archaea". (I have studied enzymes of P. furiosus, but never did any on protein biogenesis or post-translational modifications)
  • International Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
  • Recent Patents on DNA and Gene Sequences (I have never done any sequencing, but that did not prevent the editors from considering me an expert on the area ;-)

    This morning I received the most ludicrous example of "scientific" spam: I was invited to present my work on "A tale of two acids: when arginine is a more appropriate acid than H3O+" to the "EPS Montreal International Renewable Energy Forum 2011". Definitely off-topic!

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