[INDOLOGY] question about a soliciation from publisher MDPI

[Matthew Kapstein]

Dear Arlo,


I receive solicitations of this type almost every day and I have found that most emanate ultimately from Chinese sources. Money is not always involved, because the underlying game is to multiply "international refereed" journals in the interest of advancing the standings of one's institution in the Shanghai ratings.


I do not know if that is the case with what was sent to you, of course, but I do advise all colleagues to be very cautious about these matters. Phoney academic venues of various kinds - journals, conferences, even fake universities - are springing up like mushrooms. (It is worth noting that China opens about 5 new universities, more or less real ones, each month.)


best regards,

Matthew


Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago
________________________________
From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Arlo Griffiths via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2019 12:49:25 AM
To: indology at list.indology.info
Subject: [INDOLOGY] question about a soliciation from publisher MDPI

Dear colleagues,

I had received a few weeks ago an offer (see below) to help a commercial company called MDPI that publishes an Open Access journal Religions as guest editor for a special issue on an Indological topic. Since I had never heard of publisher nor journal; since I suspected that this is one of those predatory publishers we read about a lot nowadays; and since as a matter of principle I favor publishing in established not-for-profit journals, I decided not to respond. Now the same publisher sends me a gentle reminder, apparently showing that at least it's not a mere machine which has decided to solicit my assistance. This time I did click on one of their links and now see that authors wishing to publish in the journal Religions need to pay an amount of 550 CHF in 'Article Processing Charges' (APC); I don't know whether editors receive any payment for their work, but since no mention of such payment has been made I expect there is none.

I am curious whether others have received such offers, and whether there might be reason not to be as negatively prejudiced as I am. More generally, I wonder how many of you have actually published work and paid APC to get your work published. I have never been asked to do so, and wonder why anyone might feel compelled to do so as long as there are still fine journals which don't ask any such fees and impose very low barriers to access.

Best wishes,

Arlo Griffiths
EFEO, Paris

---- QUOTE FROM EMAIL RECEIVED

Dear Professor Griffiths,

We invite you to join us as Guest Editor for the open access journal
Religions (ISSN 2077-1444), to establish a Special Issue. Our
suggested topic is ‘Exploring Hindu and Buddhist religious literature
in Sanskrit’. You have been invited based on your strong publication
record in this area, and we hope to work with you to establish a
collection of papers that will be of interest to scholars in the
field. Please click on the following link to either accept or decline
our request:
https://susy.mdpi.com/guest_editor/invitation/process/282259/6TEH3ZRG

As Guest Editor, we would ask you to define the aim and scope of the
Special Issue, assist in inviting contributions, be the final
decision-maker for articles after peer-review, and collaborate with
our editorial team at MDPI.

The editorial office will take care of setting up the Special Issue
website, arranging for promotional material, assisting with
invitations to contribute papers, and administrative tasks associated
with peer-review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports,
contacting authors, and professional production before publication.

RELIGIONS is an international, open-access scholarly journal,
publishing peer reviewed studies of religious thought and practice.
It is indexed in A&HCI (Web of Science), ATLA Religion Database and
in SCOPUS, which gave it a Citescore of 0.58 and listed it among the
top 7% of the 389 religious studies journals SCOPUS surveyed in 2017.
Our PDF downloads per month = 72,796+/-.

At http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues, you may
access an inventory of our special topics issues:

Religion and Violence (editor, John Esposito, Georgetown, Washington
DC) Religion and Refugees (editors, Jin-Heong Jung, Frei Universitat,
Berlin and Alexander Horstmann, Tallinn University, Estonia)
Comparative Theology (editors, Francis Clooney, Harvard University
and John Berthrong, Boston University) Christianity in China in the
Twenty First Century (editor, Mark Toulouse, University of Toronto)
Measures of Spirituality (editor, Arndt Bussing, Witten/Herdecke
University, Germany) Transcendentalism and Religious Experience
(editors, Kenneth S. Sacks, Brown University and Daniel Koch, Oxford
University) The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016)
(editor, Glen A. Hayes, Bloomfield College and Sthaneshwar Timalsina,
San Diego State University)

Please feel free to contact us if you are interested and would like
further details, or have any questions.



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