Publications

ASIAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION team has observed around last 10 years pattern of publishing fields in different  countries., Some countries Higher Education Authorities, Universities and Institutions blindly following  Private Agencies or Business Companies listing ie. Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Science (Clarivate), DOAJ, ABCD, EBSCO, Index Copernicus, Embase,  etc.  

Observation 1:-  Many Universities, Institutions, Colleges are forcing their Faculties and Students to publish in Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Science (Clarivate), and any other listing  for  the Ranking Race in academics.  In these practices indirectly Teaching faculties, Researchers and Students have to pay higher publication charge/APC.    Higher Education Authorities are not even checking information of these private – business  listing agencies criteria, policies, limitations and their evaluators/employees qualifications.  Scopus (Elsevier) and Web of Science (Clarivate) are purely private business companies.

Observation 2:-  Common observation as approx.93% of Scopus (Elsevier) and Web of Science (Clarivate) listed journals are charging high Publication Processing Fee / APC which is a major factor for different countries researchers and students affordability in an economic/financial  way.  Only approx. 1% to 7% of listed Journals with low cost publication fee/ APC  or  Free Publications.     Some journals are not even quality publications although added in the lists of Scopus/WoS/ABDC.  

Observation 3:-   Fact Details as these agencies create listings with their own limited criteria and policies.   Adding and Removing journals as per limited criteria which seem not helpful to the research community at all. These  listing companies or agencies can not justify the research publications.     Nowadays Cloned/Fake Journals are also available in open social media  and  mostly third party agents ( which are youngsters profiles in facebook/whatsapp/linkedin ) offering  cloned/fake website publication in open social media platforms and groups  by  posts / flyers text messages  without official journal / publisher editors’ email ID.   Their posts/text messages are with Scopus / WoS source links,  but cloned – fake journal website publications.  

Observation 4:-   Totally Non-Official,  non authentic list also available  as —  “Beall’s List – of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers”;   This list was found as unauthorized,  and a fake  listing without permission / inquiry from the main owners or editors of  journals and publishers.  On January 15, 2017, the entire content of Beall’s Scholarly Open Access website was removed, because of a legal action against the list maker in the USA and from India.     This list was anonymous – website, without any Address, Contact number, official Email,   also without  official permission of  any country’s higher education authority.      Hence all Universities, Higher Education Authorities, Professors, Researchers and Students should  avoid  and  do not follow this list.       It also seems such unauthorized/ private listings are created to divert researchers for few higher paid journals/publishers and confuse researchers.    We have contacted listed journals editors / publishers  and found they did not know about this type of private-non authentic  listing,   and Journal Owners and Publishers have not given any type of permission or consent to use / to add the journal  or publisher name in the list, and no information asked-taken from them.  Directly  added – used journal names in list without prior permission against journals / publishers policies.   So the Beall’s list was a non-authentic, unauthorized  fake practice.      From the last few years this list has been copy pasted to other  private websites/ web pages / blogs in social media anonymously.   Even copy pasted and  promoted on some universities, institutions, colleges webpages / blogs  without checking and collecting  fact information.     We have found that some journals added in Beall’s list,   were also added as  standard  and approved list in Indian UGC list 2017 to 2019  and UGC-CARE  from 2019 to 2025.    Hence Indian and other Asian Countries Professors and Researchers should know this fact information.

Observation 5:-   About DOI.   There is NO ACADEMIC SCORE  of  DOI  in any country.  The main weightage score is based on the Publication with ISSN  / ISBN.    DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a company that provides DOI numbers  for online publications or documents. Simply, academicians and the research community should consider DOI just an extra income-generating company in the publishing field.     [  If any countries higher education Ministry of Education or Ministry of Higher Education or University has received any grant from  DOI company for academic benefit  ?   ]        Most of 99%  unaware researchers, students,  professors, academicians, institutions  are searching DOI on third party portals,     inplace of they should give more importance to their published papers/articles with ISSN / ISBN.