Publication ethics: science versus commerce

Excerpt

One of our students submitted a manuscript to the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology. This is a prestigious peer-reviewed journal, founded in 1938 by Jesuit Academics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Initially a Dutch language journal, Bijdragen, it was internationalized in 2013 and is now published by Taylor and Francis (http://​www.​tandfonline.​com/​toc/​rjpt20/​current). Within a few weeks our student received a message from the journal that his contribution had been reviewed and accepted: the topic was relevant, the methodology sound, and the relevant literature engaged. His manuscript could be published rather quickly. As soon as the publication had materialized, the student received an invoice of $200 to be paid to a bank account in Bangladesh. Another student who had presented a paper during a conference in Cyprus told us that immediately after the conference she received an email from the Journal of Clinical Research and Bioethics (https://​www.​omicsonline.​org/​clinical-research-bioethics.​php) inviting her to submit the text of her presentation. She was of course flattered, and in her innocence she had submitted her text. We advised her to withdraw the manuscript as soon as possible, but in that case she might face a retraction fee. …