Sciencedomain International: A bright example to solve predatory publication issues

Therefore Sciencedomain International took some proactive steps to fight against the predatory publication problem starting from 2011. Some distinguished operating principles of ‘Sciencedomain International’ are discussed below and the backgrounds of these steps are also discussed.

Problem : Predatory publishers don’t pay any attention to complaints after publication

Following Proactive Steps were taken by Sciencedomain International to solve this problem.

2.1 POST-publication peer review:

The pre-publication Peer review evaluation system is not perfect and many academicians proved loop-holes of the peer review system. We also never claimed that the peer review system is perfect. But we have tried to make it as transparent as possible. But still, we know that there will be errors. So we introduced also POST-publication peer review system.  SDI journal Websites provide the ability for users to comment on articles to facilitate community evaluation and discourse around published articles. The comment section is mainly dedicated to promote "Post-publication peer review". Please see here: http://bit.ly/post-peer-review.  As a result of this "Post-publication peer review", if authors agree and/or journal Editors agree (and/or SDI agrees) that any correction is necessary, then it will be published FREE of cost by following SDI Correction and Retraction policy (http://bit.ly/retraction-policy).

2.2 Established Retraction Policy:

No journal in the world has a hundred percent perfect peer review policy. It is not expected from the publisher that it should work like fraud detection agency or fake paper detection agency. No publisher has that capacity or enough resource for such activities. An academic publisher is expected to arrange honest peer review, editorial screening, editing, formatting, publication, DOI registration, digital preservation of papers, indexing of published papers, etc. An academic publisher depends on the integrity of the author for the submitted paper and expertise of reviewers and editors during the peer review process. At any stage, an academic publisher should never influence the publication decision by over-ruling the academic independence of the reviewers and editors. Therefore, a scholarly publisher is never expected to publish only a hundred percent perfect papers, as it depends on the author-reviewer-editor system. But an academic publisher is always expected to work promptly whenever a fraud/wrongdoing is reported. If an academic publisher sits idle when an irreparable wrongdoing is reported then the publisher is just supporting the wrongdoing of the author. Such careless idle steps of the publisher rather encourage other dishonest authors to harbour their papers with that publisher. Predatory publishers often sit idly by publishing fake papers and invite other dishonest authors to publish their papers by providing a safe shelter in exchange for publication charges. It is expected that a true academic publisher should officially retract wrong papers/fake papers immediately whenever reported. Retraction is a negative point for any publisher, but a true academic publisher should never be afraid to retract such papers with official retraction notice. Sciencedomain International has a very strong and official correction/retraction policy (see here: http://bit.ly/retraction-policy-sdi). Sciencedomain International is determined to promote integrity in research publication. We have great respect and we generally follow the guidelines given by COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION ETHICS (COPE) for any publication disputes, authorship disputes, fake paper, etc. Whenever such a serious problem is reported, Sciencedomain International takes immediate action and officially retract the paper.