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OMICS Publishing Group

October 27, 2023

"OMICS" redirects here. For the journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, see OMICS (journal). For the disciplines in biology, see Omics.
Several OMICS journals redirect here. Many have names similar to other existing non-OMICS publications.

OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] It started publishing its first journal in 2008.[1] By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct.[10] Its subsidiaries and brands include Allied Academies, Conference Series LLC LTD, EuroSciCon LTD, Hilaris Publishing, iMedPub LTD, Longdom Publishing SL, Meetings International, Pulsus Group, Research & Reviews, SciTechnol, Trade Science Inc.[11][12][13]

OMICS Publishing Group
Parent companyOMICS Group Inc
StatusActive
Founded2007 (2007)
FounderSrinubabu Gedela
Country of originIndia
Headquarters locationHyderabad, Telangana
DistributionWorldwide
Publication typesOpen access journals
Nonfiction topics
RevenueUS$11.6 million (2016)[1]
No. of employees1500[2]
Official websitewww.omicsonline.org/about.php

OMICS has come under attack by numerous academics and the United States government over the validity of the peer review by OMICS journals, the appropriateness of its fees and marketing, and the apparent advertising of the names of scientists as journal editors or conference speakers without their knowledge or permission.[4][5][6][7][8][excessive citations] The U.S. National Institutes of Health sent a cease-and-desist letter to OMICS in 2013, demanding it to discontinue with false claims of affiliation with U.S. government entities or employees.[7] In August 2016, OMICS became the first academic publisher to be sued by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for deceptive practices; nearly three years later, the FTC was awarded a summary judgement of over US$50 million.

OMICS has responded to criticisms by avowing a commitment to open access publishing, claiming that detractors are traditional subscription-based publishers who feel threatened by their open-access publishing model.[10] It responded to the FTC suit by maintaining that their practices were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit. It has also threatened a prominent critic, Jeffrey Beall, with a $1 billion lawsuit for defamation.[14]

History edit

OMICS Publishing Group was founded in 2007 by Srinubabu Gedela,[14] who remains the company's director.[15][16] He founded OMICS because of his difficulty in accessing high-cost journal contents as a PhD student.[1]

It started its first open-access journal, the Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics, in 2008.[1] In 2012, OMICS Group had more than 200 journal titles, about 60% of which had no content.[14] By 2015, it claimed over 700 titles, but about half of them were defunct.[10] Several OMICS journals have names similar to existing publications. For instance, BioMed Central established the Journal of Biomedical Science in 1994,[17] while OMICS established the Journal of Biomedical Sciences in 2012.[18]

OMICS employed around 2,000 people. In 2016, the company had revenue of $11.6 million and generated a profit of about $1.2 million.[1] The Government of India has waived taxes whilst granting subsidized land for the construction of new headquarters.[1]

Publishing activities edit

OMICS operates on a gold open access model, wherein the author pays for publication and the publisher makes the articles available for free. As well as publication fees, OMICS charges a withdrawal fee for manuscripts that are withdrawn five or more days after submission.[19][20] Such withdrawal fees are not levied by non-predatory publishers, and have been criticized as unethical and as discouraging researchers from making post-submission corrections to their work.[21]

In addition to publishing journals, OMICS also organizes conferences. In 2017, about 3,000 such conferences were organized. The conference arm makes up about 60% of OMICS' revenue.[1]

In 2012 OMICS launched an additional group of 53 additional journals under the brand name 'SciTechnol',[22][23] however as of 2021 the SciTechnol website does not disclose this relationship.

Criticism of publishing practices edit

See also: Predatory open access publishing

OMICS is widely regarded as a predatory publisher.[3][4][5][6][7][8] It has been subject to widespread criticism, notably by Jeffrey Beall, who included OMICS in his list of "potential, possible, or probable predatory" publishers. Among the criticism leveled at OMICS are that its journals are not actually peer-reviewed as advertised, often contain mistakes, and that its fees are excessive.[14] OMICS says that its activities are legitimate and ethical, and that the quality of its editorial control does need improvement.[4][15] Other criticisms of OMICS include the publication of pseudoscientific articles,[4] deceptive marketing practices,[14][7] targeting of young investigators or those in lower-income regions,[7][8] and holding papers hostage by disallowing their withdrawal (preventing them from being published by other journals).[24][25]

It has also been suggested that OMICS provides fake lists of scientists as journal editors to create an impression of scientific legitimacy, even though they are not involved in any review or editing process.[4][1] One such editor-in-chief was contacted by Science, and he stated that he had never handled any papers;[7] in an interview with The Hindu, another said he had not been informed of his purported editorship.[8] Other academics have said that OMICS published articles unaltered in spite of their request for revisions.[10] The company has also been slow to remove the names of editorial board members who requested to terminate their relationship with OMICS activities, in some cases taking almost two years.[15][10] One author received an invoice for $2,700 after her paper was accepted; this fee was not mentioned in the email message OMICS sent her to solicit a submission.[6] In 2012, while one OMICS journal rejected a paper after the reviewer noticed it was plagiarized from one of his own co-authored papers, another OMICS journal published the same paper later that year. When the reviewer again pointed this out, the paper was removed from OMICS' website in 2014, but no official retraction was posted.[26] In 2013, an OMICS journal accepted a bogus and obviously flawed publication submitted as part of a sting operation by Science.[27][28] Critics assert that the main purpose of the publisher is commercial rather than academic.[4][5]

In September 2014, PubMed Central blacklisted OMICS journals, claiming serious concerns over OMICS' publishing practices.[7] In 2017, Scopus delisted several OMICS journals for "publication concerns".[29]

A Bloomberg News investigation in 2017 noted a tendency of pharmaceutical companies to publish in these journals, which might have stemmed from a self-interest in skipping rigorous review procedures.[1] They were also the major sponsors of OMICS conferences.[1]

OMICS Conferences edit

In 2013, Jeffrey Beall reported that OMICS has added conducting "predatory meetings" to its publications activity[30] including under the ConferenceSeries banner.[31] Beall criticised the financial arrangements for OMICS conferences and urged all scholars to refrain from any dealing with these conferences.[30]

An example of such a meeting is the 2016 International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics, organised by ConferenceSeries, and to which Christoph Bartneck, an associate professor in Information Technology at New Zealand's University of Canterbury, was invited. With little knowledge of nuclear physics, Bartneck used iOS's autocomplete function to write the paper, choosing randomly from its suggestions after starting each sentence,[32] and submitted it under the name Iris Pear (a reference to Siri and Apple).[33] A sample sentence from the abstract for the resulting manuscript was: "The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids,"[32] and the 516-word abstract contained the words "good" and "great" a combined total of 28 times.[33] Despite being obvious nonsense, the work was accepted within three hours of submission and a conference registration fee of $1,099 requested.[32][33] Bartneck commented that he was "reasonably certain that this is a money-making conference with little to no commitment to science," a comment he based on the poor quality of the review process and the high cost of attendance.[32] Gedela said that Bartneck's paper "slipped through" for being submitted "so close to the deadline".[1]

In another example, Tom Spears of the Ottawa Citizen repeatedly submitted to OMICS conferences several sting abstracts that included "Evolution of flight characteristics in avian-porcine physiology" and "Strategies for remediation of benthic and pelagic species dependent on coral reefs: Cases of T. migratorius and G. californianus" which respectively claimed to explain how pigs fly and claimed roadrunner birds lived underwater.[34] In yet another case, OMICS accepted a paper plagiarized from Aristotle and "garbled to remove any clear meaning" to an ethics journal, and later accepted the same paper to a conference on geriatrics and nursing.[35]

It has been also found that many academic or government scientists are advertised as speakers or organizers for OMICS conferences, without their agreement.[7]

Action by US government agencies edit

In April 2013, OMICS received a cease-and-desist letter from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) after a complaint filed by Ken Witwer, who said he had been fooled by OMICS's deceptive marketing. The letter alleged that OMICS used images and names of employees that either no longer worked at NIH or did not provide permission, and asked OMICS not to use the name of its agencies institutes or employees for anything other than "true factual statements".[7] OMICS responded by modifying its website and providing emails and letters from the NIH employees ostensibly agreeing to serve as editors of OMICS journals. Those employees later said that while they did agree to serve as editors, they did not provide permission for their names to be used in marketing materials; furthermore, they had not actually handled any manuscripts.[7]

FTC suit edit

In August 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a suit against OMICS, two of its affiliated companies and Gedela, charging them with deceptive publishing practices[24] and seeking an unspecified monetary reimbursement for academics duped by them.[1] In its first-ever suit against an academic publisher,[36] they alleged OMICS' peer-review processes to be a "sham" and their claiming of renowned academics in their editorial board and/or as speakers at its conferences without their consent to be intentionally deceptive.[1] The FTC also noted a failure to disclose publishing fees prior to accepting pieces, citing of dubious impact factors and false assertions about their journals being indexed in PubMed, when they are not.[1]

In response to the lawsuit, OMICS rejected the various allegations, maintaining that their processes were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit.[37][38]

The United States District Court for the District of Nevada handed down a preliminary injunction in November 2017, preventing OMICS from "making misrepresentations" about their journals and conferences, as well as requiring that OMICS clearly disclose all article processing charges.[38] The FTC won a summary judgment (ECF No. 86) on 29 March 2019, with the court finding that OMICS made false claims about manuscripts being peer-reviewed, used the name of prominent researchers as editors of journals without their consent or knowledge, used misleading impact factors for journals which had not been calculated by Clarivate Analytics, made false claims about being indexed by PubMed, was not transparent about the publication fees charged per manuscript until after it had accepted an article for publication, and often did not allow researchers to withdraw their articles after submission. OMICS was ordered to pay a fine of $50,130,810 as well as change some of its publishing methods.[39][40][41] OMICS plans to challenge the ruling.[42] On September 11, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the grant of summary judgment and the $50.1 million award.[43]

Legal threat to Jeffrey Beall edit

In 2013, OMICS Publishing Group sent a letter to then University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall stating that they intended to sue him and were seeking $1 billion in damages. In their six-page letter, OMICS stated that Beall's blog is "ridiculous, baseless, impertinent", and "smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance".[14] Beall said that he found the letter "to be poorly written and personally threatening," and that he thought: "the letter is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS's editorial practices".[44]

OMICS' law firm said it was pursuing damages under India's Information Technology Act, 2000, referring to section 66A, which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish "any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or to publish false information. It stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty, although a U.S. lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a "publicity stunt" that were meant to "intimidate".[14] An editorial in the New Delhi-based India Today cited the incident as evidence that Section 66A should be discarded to eliminate its use in "stifling political dissent, crushing speech and ... enabling bullying".[45] In 2015, Section 66A was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in an unrelated case.[46][47]

Acquisition of Canadian publishers edit

In late September 2016, OMICS acquired two Canadian publishers—Andrew John Publishing and Pulsus Group—and sixteen journals published by them.[48] The acquisition led to a decline in publishing standards for these journals,[49] caused concern that the names of the publishers were being hijacked to lend credence to bogus science, and led to six of the sixteen journals stating their intention to terminate their publishing contracts with OMICS.[48]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Deprez, Esmé E.; Chen, Caroline (29 August 2017). "Medical Journals Have a Fake News Problem". Bloomberg News. from the original on 25 January 2019.
  2. ^ "Chanting success mantra, scientific way". The Hindu. 6 March 2016. Archived from the original on 30 October 2019.
  3. ^ a b Beall, Jeffrey (18 December 2014). . Scholarly Open Access. Archived from the original on 22 October 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Stratford, Michael (4 March 2012). "'Predatory' Online Journals Lure Scholars Who Are Eager to Publish". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d Beall, Jeffrey (1 July 2010). "Update: Predatory Open-Access Scholarly Publishers" (PDF). The Charleston Advisor. 12 (1): 50. doi:10.5260/chara.12.1.50.
  6. ^ a b c d Butler, Declan (27 March 2013). "Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing". Nature. 495 (7442): 433–435. Bibcode:2013Natur.495..433B. doi:10.1038/495433a. PMID 23538810.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kaiser, Jocelyn (9 May 2013). "U.S. Government Accuses Open Access Publisher of Trademark Infringement". Science. from the original on 10 May 2013.
  8. ^ a b c d e Prasad, R. (26 September 2012). "On the Net, a scam of a most scholarly kind". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  9. ^ Yadav, Shyamlal (19 July 2018). "Inside India's fake research paper shops: pay, publish, profit". The Indian Express. from the original on 26 March 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  10. ^ a b c d e "Predatory publishers criticised for 'unethical, unprincipled' tactics". Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 11 November 2015. from the original on 27 March 2018.
  11. ^ Siler, Kyle; Vincent-Lamarre, Philippe; Sugimoto, Cassidy R.; Larivière, Vincent (26 October 2021). "Predatory publishers' latest scam: bootlegged and rebranded papers". Nature. 598 (7882): 563–565. Bibcode:2021Natur.598..563S. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-02906-8. hdl:1866/25816. PMID 34703002. S2CID 239999772.
  12. ^ Readfearn, Graham (12 January 2018). "All those OMICS linked companies in one place" (blog). Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  13. ^ Yadav, Shyamlal (22 July 2018). "Fake Science: Face behind biggest of all — '40 countries, million articles'". The Indian Express. Hyderabad. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g New, Jake (15 May 2013). "Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for $1-Billion". The Chronicle of Higher Education. from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  15. ^ a b c Kolata, Gina (8 April 2013). "Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal Checks, Too)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 June 2013. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
  16. ^ . Deccan Chronicle. 24 November 2012. Archived from the original on 7 June 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  17. ^ Journal of Biomedical Science. 1994. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  18. ^ "Journal of Biomedical Sciences, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2012". www.jbiomeds.com.
  19. ^ "OMICS International Article Processing Charges". from the original on 26 September 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  20. ^ Linacre, Simon; Bisaccio, Michael; Earle, Lacey (April 2019). "Publishing in an environment of predation: The many things you really wanted to know, but did not know how to ask". Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing. 26 (2): 217–228. doi:10.1080/1051712x.2019.1603423.
  21. ^ Brezgov, Stef (22 August 2019). . ScholarlyOA. Archived from the original on 1 November 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  22. ^ Brezgov, Stef (14 August 2019). "OMICS Publishing Launches New Brand with 53 Journal Titles". scholarlyoa.com. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  23. ^ Kaye, DH (23 December 2016). "Flaky Academic Journals: SciTechnol (OMICS in disguise)". Flaky Academic Journals. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  24. ^ a b "FTC Charges Academic Journal Publisher OMICS Group Deceived Researchers" (Press release). United States Federal Trade Commission. 26 August 2016. from the original on 26 September 2019.
  25. ^ "Federal Trade Commission v. OMICS Group Inc. | Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief" (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Nevada. 25 August 2016. Case No. 2:16-cv-02022. (PDF) from the original on 16 May 2019.
  26. ^ Jump, Paul (7 August 2014). "Rejected work gets back in the line-up". Times Higher Education.
  27. ^ Bohannon, John (4 October 2013). "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?". Science. 342 (6154): 60–65. Bibcode:2013Sci...342...60B. doi:10.1126/science.342.6154.60. PMID 24092725. (PDF) from the original on 10 September 2019.
  28. ^ Bohannon, John (4 October 2013). "Data and Documents". Science. 342 (6154): 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.2013.342.6154.342_60. PMID 24092725. from the original on 21 March 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  29. ^ McCook, Alison (27 March 2017). "Multiple OMICS journals delisted from major index over concerns". Retraction Watch. from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  30. ^ a b Beall, Jeffrey; Levine, Richard (25 January 2013). . Scholarly Open Access. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  31. ^ Brezgof, Steff (13 October 2016). . Scholarly Open Access. Archived from the original on 6 November 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  32. ^ a b c d Hunt, Elle (22 October 2016). "Nonsense paper written by iOS autocomplete accepted for conference". The Guardian. from the original on 26 June 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  33. ^ a b c Bartneck, Christoph (20 October 2016). "iOS Just Got A Paper On Nuclear Physics Accepted At A Scientific Conference". University of Canterbury Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab, New Zealand. Retrieved 22 October 2016.
  34. ^ Spears, Tom (3 March 2017). "When pigs fly: Fake science conferences abound for fraud and profit". Ottawa Citizen. from the original on 14 May 2018.
  35. ^ Spears, Tom (5 June 2017). "Fake science publisher offers shoddy continuing education for doctors, nurses". Ottawa Citizen. from the original on 26 March 2019.
  36. ^ McCook, Alison (26 August 2016), "U.S. government agency sues publisher, charging it with deceiving researchers", Retraction Watch, from the original on 27 March 2019
  37. ^ Oransky, Ivan; Marcus, Adam (2 September 2016), "Are 'predatory' publishers' days numbered?", Stat, from the original on 8 April 2019
  38. ^ a b "U.S. court temporarily halts 'deceptive practices' of so-called predatory publisher". CTV News. 23 November 2017. from the original on 8 April 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  39. ^ Timmer, John (3 April 2019). "FTC hits predatory scientific publisher with a $50 million fine". Ars Technica. Condé Nast Digital. from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  40. ^ Oransky, Ivan (2 April 2019). "Court orders publisher OMICS to pay U.S. gov't $50 million in suit alleging "unfair and deceptive practices"". Retraction Watch. from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  41. ^ Prasad, R. (3 April 2019). "Hyderabad-based OMICS fined $50 million for 'unfair, deceptive business practices'". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  42. ^ Kolata, Gina (3 April 2019). "The Price for 'Predatory' Publishing? $50 Million". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  43. ^ Federal Trade Commission v. OMICS Group, 19-15738 (9th Cir. 10 June 2020) ("we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the FTC").
  44. ^ Chappell, Bill (15 May 2013). "Publisher Threatens Librarian With $1 Billion Lawsuit". NPR. from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  45. ^ Venkataramakrishnan, Rohan (19 May 2013). "Send Section 66A bullies home". India Today (editorial). from the original on 28 September 2019. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  46. ^ Sriram, Jayant (24 March 2015). "SC strikes down 'draconian' Section 66A". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2019. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  47. ^ "Writ Petition (Criminal) No.167 of 2012" (PDF). Supreme Court of India. (PDF) from the original on 20 September 2016 – via The Hindu.
  48. ^ a b Oved, Marco Chown (29 September 2016). "Canadian medical journals hijacked for junk science". The Toronto Star. from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  49. ^ Puzic, Sonja (29 September 2016). "Offshore firm accused of publishing junk science takes over Canadian journals". CTV News. from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2016.

External links edit

  • Official website

October 27, 2023
omics, publishing, group, omics, redirects, here, journal, published, mary, liebert, omics, journal, disciplines, biology, omics, several, omics, journals, redirect, here, many, have, names, similar, other, existing, omics, publications, predatory, publisher, . OMICS redirects here For the journal published by Mary Ann Liebert see OMICS journal For the disciplines in biology see Omics Several OMICS journals redirect here Many have names similar to other existing non OMICS publications OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 It started publishing its first journal in 2008 1 By 2015 it claimed over 700 journals although about half of them were defunct 10 Its subsidiaries and brands include Allied Academies Conference Series LLC LTD EuroSciCon LTD Hilaris Publishing iMedPub LTD Longdom Publishing SL Meetings International Pulsus Group Research amp Reviews SciTechnol Trade Science Inc 11 12 13 OMICS Publishing GroupParent companyOMICS Group IncStatusActiveFounded2007 2007 FounderSrinubabu GedelaCountry of originIndiaHeadquarters locationHyderabad TelanganaDistributionWorldwidePublication typesOpen access journalsNonfiction topicsScience technologymedicineRevenueUS 11 6 million 2016 1 No of employees1500 2 Official websitewww wbr omicsonline wbr org wbr about wbr phpOMICS has come under attack by numerous academics and the United States government over the validity of the peer review by OMICS journals the appropriateness of its fees and marketing and the apparent advertising of the names of scientists as journal editors or conference speakers without their knowledge or permission 4 5 6 7 8 excessive citations The U S National Institutes of Health sent a cease and desist letter to OMICS in 2013 demanding it to discontinue with false claims of affiliation with U S government entities or employees 7 In August 2016 OMICS became the first academic publisher to be sued by the U S Federal Trade Commission FTC for deceptive practices nearly three years later the FTC was awarded a summary judgement of over US 50 million OMICS has responded to criticisms by avowing a commitment to open access publishing claiming that detractors are traditional subscription based publishers who feel threatened by their open access publishing model 10 It responded to the FTC suit by maintaining that their practices were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit It has also threatened a prominent critic Jeffrey Beall with a 1 billion lawsuit for defamation 14 Contents 1 History 2 Publishing activities 3 Criticism of publishing practices 3 1 OMICS Conferences 3 2 Action by US government agencies 3 3 FTC suit 3 4 Legal threat to Jeffrey Beall 3 5 Acquisition of Canadian publishers 4 References 5 External linksHistory editOMICS Publishing Group was founded in 2007 by Srinubabu Gedela 14 who remains the company s director 15 16 He founded OMICS because of his difficulty in accessing high cost journal contents as a PhD student 1 It started its first open access journal the Journal of Proteomics amp Bioinformatics in 2008 1 In 2012 OMICS Group had more than 200 journal titles about 60 of which had no content 14 By 2015 it claimed over 700 titles but about half of them were defunct 10 Several OMICS journals have names similar to existing publications For instance BioMed Central established the Journal of Biomedical Science in 1994 17 while OMICS established the Journal of Biomedical Sciences in 2012 18 OMICS employed around 2 000 people In 2016 the company had revenue of 11 6 million and generated a profit of about 1 2 million 1 The Government of India has waived taxes whilst granting subsidized land for the construction of new headquarters 1 Publishing activities editOMICS operates on a gold open access model wherein the author pays for publication and the publisher makes the articles available for free As well as publication fees OMICS charges a withdrawal fee for manuscripts that are withdrawn five or more days after submission 19 20 Such withdrawal fees are not levied by non predatory publishers and have been criticized as unethical and as discouraging researchers from making post submission corrections to their work 21 In addition to publishing journals OMICS also organizes conferences In 2017 about 3 000 such conferences were organized The conference arm makes up about 60 of OMICS revenue 1 In 2012 OMICS launched an additional group of 53 additional journals under the brand name SciTechnol 22 23 however as of 2021 the SciTechnol website does not disclose this relationship Criticism of publishing practices editSee also Predatory open access publishing OMICS is widely regarded as a predatory publisher 3 4 5 6 7 8 It has been subject to widespread criticism notably by Jeffrey Beall who included OMICS in his list of potential possible or probable predatory publishers Among the criticism leveled at OMICS are that its journals are not actually peer reviewed as advertised often contain mistakes and that its fees are excessive 14 OMICS says that its activities are legitimate and ethical and that the quality of its editorial control does need improvement 4 15 Other criticisms of OMICS include the publication of pseudoscientific articles 4 deceptive marketing practices 14 7 targeting of young investigators or those in lower income regions 7 8 and holding papers hostage by disallowing their withdrawal preventing them from being published by other journals 24 25 It has also been suggested that OMICS provides fake lists of scientists as journal editors to create an impression of scientific legitimacy even though they are not involved in any review or editing process 4 1 One such editor in chief was contacted by Science and he stated that he had never handled any papers 7 in an interview with The Hindu another said he had not been informed of his purported editorship 8 Other academics have said that OMICS published articles unaltered in spite of their request for revisions 10 The company has also been slow to remove the names of editorial board members who requested to terminate their relationship with OMICS activities in some cases taking almost two years 15 10 One author received an invoice for 2 700 after her paper was accepted this fee was not mentioned in the email message OMICS sent her to solicit a submission 6 In 2012 while one OMICS journal rejected a paper after the reviewer noticed it was plagiarized from one of his own co authored papers another OMICS journal published the same paper later that year When the reviewer again pointed this out the paper was removed from OMICS website in 2014 but no official retraction was posted 26 In 2013 an OMICS journal accepted a bogus and obviously flawed publication submitted as part of a sting operation by Science 27 28 Critics assert that the main purpose of the publisher is commercial rather than academic 4 5 In September 2014 PubMed Central blacklisted OMICS journals claiming serious concerns over OMICS publishing practices 7 In 2017 Scopus delisted several OMICS journals for publication concerns 29 A Bloomberg News investigation in 2017 noted a tendency of pharmaceutical companies to publish in these journals which might have stemmed from a self interest in skipping rigorous review procedures 1 They were also the major sponsors of OMICS conferences 1 OMICS Conferences edit In 2013 Jeffrey Beall reported that OMICS has added conducting predatory meetings to its publications activity 30 including under the ConferenceSeries banner 31 Beall criticised the financial arrangements for OMICS conferences and urged all scholars to refrain from any dealing with these conferences 30 An example of such a meeting is the 2016 International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics organised by ConferenceSeries and to which Christoph Bartneck an associate professor in Information Technology at New Zealand s University of Canterbury was invited With little knowledge of nuclear physics Bartneck used iOS s autocomplete function to write the paper choosing randomly from its suggestions after starting each sentence 32 and submitted it under the name Iris Pear a reference to Siri and Apple 33 A sample sentence from the abstract for the resulting manuscript was The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids 32 and the 516 word abstract contained the words good and great a combined total of 28 times 33 Despite being obvious nonsense the work was accepted within three hours of submission and a conference registration fee of 1 099 requested 32 33 Bartneck commented that he was reasonably certain that this is a money making conference with little to no commitment to science a comment he based on the poor quality of the review process and the high cost of attendance 32 Gedela said that Bartneck s paper slipped through for being submitted so close to the deadline 1 In another example Tom Spears of the Ottawa Citizen repeatedly submitted to OMICS conferences several sting abstracts that included Evolution of flight characteristics in avian porcine physiology and Strategies for remediation of benthic and pelagic species dependent on coral reefs Cases of T migratorius and G californianus which respectively claimed to explain how pigs fly and claimed roadrunner birds lived underwater 34 In yet another case OMICS accepted a paper plagiarized from Aristotle and garbled to remove any clear meaning to an ethics journal and later accepted the same paper to a conference on geriatrics and nursing 35 It has been also found that many academic or government scientists are advertised as speakers or organizers for OMICS conferences without their agreement 7 Action by US government agencies edit In April 2013 OMICS received a cease and desist letter from the United States Department of Health and Human Services DHHS after a complaint filed by Ken Witwer who said he had been fooled by OMICS s deceptive marketing The letter alleged that OMICS used images and names of employees that either no longer worked at NIH or did not provide permission and asked OMICS not to use the name of its agencies institutes or employees for anything other than true factual statements 7 OMICS responded by modifying its website and providing emails and letters from the NIH employees ostensibly agreeing to serve as editors of OMICS journals Those employees later said that while they did agree to serve as editors they did not provide permission for their names to be used in marketing materials furthermore they had not actually handled any manuscripts 7 FTC suit edit In August 2016 the U S Federal Trade Commission FTC filed a suit against OMICS two of its affiliated companies and Gedela charging them with deceptive publishing practices 24 and seeking an unspecified monetary reimbursement for academics duped by them 1 In its first ever suit against an academic publisher 36 they alleged OMICS peer review processes to be a sham and their claiming of renowned academics in their editorial board and or as speakers at its conferences without their consent to be intentionally deceptive 1 The FTC also noted a failure to disclose publishing fees prior to accepting pieces citing of dubious impact factors and false assertions about their journals being indexed in PubMed when they are not 1 In response to the lawsuit OMICS rejected the various allegations maintaining that their processes were legal and claiming that corporate interests were driving the suit 37 38 The United States District Court for the District of Nevada handed down a preliminary injunction in November 2017 preventing OMICS from making misrepresentations about their journals and conferences as well as requiring that OMICS clearly disclose all article processing charges 38 The FTC won a summary judgment ECF No 86 on 29 March 2019 with the court finding that OMICS made false claims about manuscripts being peer reviewed used the name of prominent researchers as editors of journals without their consent or knowledge used misleading impact factors for journals which had not been calculated by Clarivate Analytics made false claims about being indexed by PubMed was not transparent about the publication fees charged per manuscript until after it had accepted an article for publication and often did not allow researchers to withdraw their articles after submission OMICS was ordered to pay a fine of 50 130 810 as well as change some of its publishing methods 39 40 41 OMICS plans to challenge the ruling 42 On September 11 2020 the U S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the grant of summary judgment and the 50 1 million award 43 Legal threat to Jeffrey Beall edit In 2013 OMICS Publishing Group sent a letter to then University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall stating that they intended to sue him and were seeking 1 billion in damages In their six page letter OMICS stated that Beall s blog is ridiculous baseless impertinent and smacks of literal unprofessionalism and arrogance 14 Beall said that he found the letter to be poorly written and personally threatening and that he thought the letter is an attempt to detract from the enormity of OMICS s editorial practices 44 OMICS law firm said it was pursuing damages under India s Information Technology Act 2000 referring to section 66A which makes it illegal to use a computer to publish any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character or to publish false information It stated that three years in prison was a possible penalty although a U S lawyer said that the threats seemed to be a publicity stunt that were meant to intimidate 14 An editorial in the New Delhi based India Today cited the incident as evidence that Section 66A should be discarded to eliminate its use in stifling political dissent crushing speech and enabling bullying 45 In 2015 Section 66A was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in an unrelated case 46 47 Acquisition of Canadian publishers edit In late September 2016 OMICS acquired two Canadian publishers Andrew John Publishing and Pulsus Group and sixteen journals published by them 48 The acquisition led to a decline in publishing standards for these journals 49 caused concern that the names of the publishers were being hijacked to lend credence to bogus science and led to six of the sixteen journals stating their intention to terminate their publishing contracts with OMICS 48 References edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Deprez Esme E Chen Caroline 29 August 2017 Medical Journals Have a Fake News Problem Bloomberg News Archived from the original on 25 January 2019 Chanting success mantra scientific way The Hindu 6 March 2016 Archived from the original on 30 October 2019 a b Beall Jeffrey 18 December 2014 The OMICS Publishing Group s Empire is Expanding Scholarly Open Access Archived from the original on 22 October 2015 a b c d e f g Stratford Michael 4 March 2012 Predatory Online Journals Lure Scholars Who Are Eager to Publish The Chronicle of Higher Education Retrieved 2 October 2012 a b c d Beall Jeffrey 1 July 2010 Update Predatory Open Access Scholarly Publishers PDF The Charleston Advisor 12 1 50 doi 10 5260 chara 12 1 50 a b c d Butler Declan 27 March 2013 Investigating journals The dark side of publishing Nature 495 7442 433 435 Bibcode 2013Natur 495 433B doi 10 1038 495433a PMID 23538810 a b c d e f g h i j k Kaiser Jocelyn 9 May 2013 U S Government Accuses Open Access Publisher of Trademark Infringement Science Archived from the original on 10 May 2013 a b c d e Prasad R 26 September 2012 On the Net a scam of a most scholarly kind The Hindu Archived from the original on 30 June 2013 Retrieved 30 October 2019 Yadav Shyamlal 19 July 2018 Inside India s fake research paper shops pay publish profit The Indian Express Archived from the original on 26 March 2019 Retrieved 30 July 2018 a b c d e Predatory publishers criticised for unethical unprincipled tactics Radio National Australian Broadcasting Corporation 11 November 2015 Archived from the original on 27 March 2018 Siler Kyle Vincent Lamarre Philippe Sugimoto Cassidy R Lariviere Vincent 26 October 2021 Predatory publishers latest scam bootlegged and rebranded papers Nature 598 7882 563 565 Bibcode 2021Natur 598 563S doi 10 1038 d41586 021 02906 8 hdl 1866 25816 PMID 34703002 S2CID 239999772 Readfearn Graham 12 January 2018 All those OMICS linked companies in one place blog Retrieved 10 October 2018 Yadav Shyamlal 22 July 2018 Fake Science Face behind biggest of all 40 countries million articles The Indian Express Hyderabad Retrieved 31 May 2019 a b c d e f g New Jake 15 May 2013 Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for 1 Billion The Chronicle of Higher Education Archived from the original on 27 August 2018 Retrieved 15 May 2013 a b c Kolata Gina 8 April 2013 Scientific Articles Accepted Personal Checks Too The New York Times Archived from the original on 20 June 2013 Retrieved 27 February 2017 Mishaps at clinical trials hyped says pharma body Deccan Chronicle 24 November 2012 Archived from the original on 7 June 2013 Retrieved 22 October 2013 Journal of Biomedical Science 1994 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help Journal of Biomedical Sciences Volume 1 Issue 1 2012 www jbiomeds com OMICS International Article Processing Charges Archived from the original on 26 September 2019 Retrieved 30 December 2017 Linacre Simon Bisaccio Michael Earle Lacey April 2019 Publishing in an environment of predation The many things you really wanted to know but did not know how to ask Journal of Business to Business Marketing 26 2 217 228 doi 10 1080 1051712x 2019 1603423 Brezgov Stef 22 August 2019 OMICS Group Now Charging for Article Withdrawals ScholarlyOA Archived from the original on 1 November 2019 Retrieved 1 November 2019 Brezgov Stef 14 August 2019 OMICS Publishing Launches New Brand with 53 Journal Titles scholarlyoa com Retrieved 18 May 2021 Kaye DH 23 December 2016 Flaky Academic Journals SciTechnol OMICS in disguise Flaky Academic Journals Retrieved 18 May 2021 a b FTC Charges Academic Journal Publisher OMICS Group Deceived Researchers Press release United States Federal Trade Commission 26 August 2016 Archived from the original on 26 September 2019 Federal Trade Commission v OMICS Group Inc Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief PDF United States District Court for the District of Nevada 25 August 2016 Case No 2 16 cv 02022 Archived PDF from the original on 16 May 2019 Jump Paul 7 August 2014 Rejected work gets back in the line up Times Higher Education Bohannon John 4 October 2013 Who s Afraid of Peer Review Science 342 6154 60 65 Bibcode 2013Sci 342 60B doi 10 1126 science 342 6154 60 PMID 24092725 Archived PDF from the original on 10 September 2019 Bohannon John 4 October 2013 Data and Documents Science 342 6154 60 65 doi 10 1126 science 2013 342 6154 342 60 PMID 24092725 Archived from the original on 21 March 2019 Retrieved 29 May 2015 McCook Alison 27 March 2017 Multiple OMICS journals delisted from major index over concerns Retraction Watch Archived from the original on 9 July 2017 Retrieved 3 April 2017 a b Beall Jeffrey Levine Richard 25 January 2013 OMICS Goes from Predatory Publishing to Predatory Meetings Scholarly Open Access Archived from the original on 5 June 2016 Retrieved 22 October 2016 Brezgof Steff 13 October 2016 Bogus British Company Accredits OMICS Conferences Scholarly Open Access Archived from the original on 6 November 2016 Retrieved 22 October 2016 a b c d Hunt Elle 22 October 2016 Nonsense paper written by iOS autocomplete accepted for conference The Guardian Archived from the original on 26 June 2019 Retrieved 22 October 2016 a b c Bartneck Christoph 20 October 2016 iOS Just Got A Paper On Nuclear Physics Accepted At A Scientific Conference University of Canterbury Human Interface Technology HIT Lab New Zealand Retrieved 22 October 2016 Spears Tom 3 March 2017 When pigs fly Fake science conferences abound for fraud and profit Ottawa Citizen Archived from the original on 14 May 2018 Spears Tom 5 June 2017 Fake science publisher offers shoddy continuing education for doctors nurses Ottawa Citizen Archived from the original on 26 March 2019 McCook Alison 26 August 2016 U S government agency sues publisher charging it with deceiving researchers Retraction Watch archived from the original on 27 March 2019 Oransky Ivan Marcus Adam 2 September 2016 Are predatory publishers days numbered Stat archived from the original on 8 April 2019 a b U S court temporarily halts deceptive practices of so called predatory publisher CTV News 23 November 2017 Archived from the original on 8 April 2019 Retrieved 30 December 2017 Timmer John 3 April 2019 FTC hits predatory scientific publisher with a 50 million fine Ars Technica Conde Nast Digital Archived from the original on 6 April 2019 Retrieved 3 April 2019 Oransky Ivan 2 April 2019 Court orders publisher OMICS to pay U S gov t 50 million in suit alleging unfair and deceptive practices Retraction Watch Archived from the original on 6 April 2019 Retrieved 3 April 2019 Prasad R 3 April 2019 Hyderabad based OMICS fined 50 million for unfair deceptive business practices The Hindu Archived from the original on 30 October 2019 Retrieved 5 April 2019 Kolata Gina 3 April 2019 The Price for Predatory Publishing 50 Million The New York Times Archived from the original on 4 April 2019 Retrieved 5 April 2019 Federal Trade Commission v OMICS Group 19 15738 9th Cir 10 June 2020 we affirm the district court s grant of summary judgment to the FTC Chappell Bill 15 May 2013 Publisher Threatens Librarian With 1 Billion Lawsuit NPR Archived from the original on 2 April 2019 Retrieved 18 January 2014 Venkataramakrishnan Rohan 19 May 2013 Send Section 66A bullies home India Today editorial Archived from the original on 28 September 2019 Retrieved 19 May 2013 Sriram Jayant 24 March 2015 SC strikes down draconian Section 66A The Hindu Archived from the original on 30 October 2019 Retrieved 30 October 2019 Writ Petition Criminal No 167 of 2012 PDF Supreme Court of India Archived PDF from the original on 20 September 2016 via The Hindu a b Oved Marco Chown 29 September 2016 Canadian medical journals hijacked for junk science The Toronto Star Archived from the original on 2 May 2019 Retrieved 11 October 2016 Puzic Sonja 29 September 2016 Offshore firm accused of publishing junk science takes over Canadian journals CTV News Archived from the original on 6 April 2019 Retrieved 11 October 2016 External links editOfficial website Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title OMICS Publishing Group amp oldid 1181662508, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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