A leading trade association for the publishers of free, open-access (OA) scientific journals has expelled two of its members, and put a third on probation, as a result of a
controversial investigative journalism project published earlier this year by Science. The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
announced today on its blog that it is terminating the memberships of publishers Hikari Ltd. and Dove Medical Press and placing the membership of SAGE Publications “under review” for 6 months.
Last month, reporter John Bohannon sparked extensive debate with a story, part of a larger special issue on how scientists communicate with each other, which documented lax standards for accepting manuscripts at a number of OA journals. He found that dozens of free journals accepted a fake and obviously flawed study that he had created.
The “sting” prompted fierce debate, with some critics arguing that Bohannon’s methods were flawed and designed to undermine the OA movement, while others said the story highlighted an important problem in the rapidly growing OA industry.
