We write these fact check articles to verify whether a given statement is true or not. These articles are, by design, short and focus on just one issue, rather than carrying out a detailed study.
Fact to be checked: Is the publisher JScholar indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?
JScholar, and the journals they publish, use the DOAJ logo on their web sites, which suggests that they are recognized by DOAJ and that the journal and publisher are indexed by DOAJ. Moreover, an email they sent suggests that the papers that they publish will be indexed by DOAJ. We want to validate the use of the DOAJ logo on their web site.
Date of fact check: 16 Jan 2021.
Summary of finding: The publisher JScholar claims that papers that it publishes will be indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). JScholar, and the journals it publishes, are not indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals. Therefore, they should not be using the DOAJ logo on their web site(s).
Journal of Dentistry and Oral Health
The catalyst of this fact check was an email from the Journal of Dentistry and Oral Health. We thought we would start by looking at this journal and then take a look at the publisher.
Claiming it is Indexed by DOAJ
We were passed this email (see Figure 1), which we received on 29 Sep 2020. It requested that the researcher submits an article to the Journal of Dentistry and Oral Health (ISSN: 2332-4856), which is published by JScholaronline.
We have highlighted the paragraph that is of interest in the context of this article.
The journal claims that, once the article is published, it will be indexed in DOAJ (which we assume to mean the Directory of Open Access Journals). This claim is not only made on the email, but the DOAJ logo also appears on the footer of their home page (see Figure 2).
Checking DOAJ affiliation
Using the search facility on the DOAJ web site, it is easy to check whether a journal is indexed by DOAJ. Figure 3 shows the result of that search using the ISSN (2332-4856) (if you are unsure what an ISSN is, take a look at our article “What is an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)?“). We also searched by the journal name, with the same results (that is, the journal was not found).
Just to be clear, the Journal of Dentistry and Oral Health (ISSN 2232-4856) is not indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals, despite what it says on the email they sent and the fact that yhey use the DOAJ logo on their web site.
JScholar
The Journal of Dentistry and Oral Health is published by JScholar. The publisher’s home page, like the journal, display the DOAJ logo at the bottom of their home page. We decided to look at each of the journals published by JScholar as it might be the case that some of their journals are registered by DOAJ and they just use the DOAJ logo, perhaps naively, but at least there would be some justification.
At the time of writing (16 Jan 2021), JScholar published 24 journals (see Table 1).
Seven of those journals did not have an ISSN, being labelled as “Under Processing” when looking at the journal web site.
None of the other 17 journals were indexed by DOAJ, when we searched by the journal’s ISSN.
| Journal name | ISSN | Indexed by DOAJ? |
|---|---|---|
| JOURNAL OF DENTISTRY AND ORAL HEALTH | 2332-4856 | No |
| JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY AND VASCULAR MEDICINE | 2232-239X | No |
| JOURNAL OF CANCER RESEARCH AND THERAPEUTIC ONCOLOGY | 2332-2403 | No |
| JOURNAL OF HIV/AIDS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES | 2332-483X | No |
| JOURNAL OF BIOINFORMATICS AND COMPARATIVE GENOMICS | 2694-037X | No |
| JOURNAL OF NANOTECHNOLOGY AND SMART MATERIALS | 2372-2797 | No |
| JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY AND NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS | 2375-2491 | No |
| JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY AND DRUG METABOLISM | 2688-5085 | No |
| JOURNAL OF FORENSIC RESEARCH AND CRIME STUDIES | 2374-7900 | No |
| JOURNAL OF WOMEN’S HEALTH AND GYNECOLOGY | 2379-6715 | No |
| JOURNAL OF FOOD AND NUTRITION | 2375-6829 | No |
| CASE REPORTS: OPEN ACCESS | 2688-5077 | No |
| JOURNAL OF ANESTHESIA AND SURGICAL CARE | Under Processing | N/A |
| JOURNAL OF OPHTHALMOLOGY: OPEN ACCESS | 2694-6440 | No |
| JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING AND RESEARCH | 2688-5093 | No |
| JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCES AND APPLICATIONS | 2691-9478 | No |
| JOURNAL OF STEM CELL REPORTS | 2690-4845 | No |
| JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY AND CLINICAL RESEARCH | Under Processing | N/A |
| EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCH AND CLINICAL TRIALS | Under Processing | N/A |
| JOURNAL OF SURGICAL PROCEDURES AND CASE REPORTS | 2693-2539 | No |
| JOURNAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT | Under Processing | N/A |
| JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY RESEARCH AND ADVANCES IN VACCINES | Under Processing | N/A |
| INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING SCIENCE MANAGEMENT & PATIENT CARE | Under Processing | N/A |
| JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS | Under Processing | N/A |
| Table 1: Journals published by JScholar (as at 16 Jan 2021) |
As another check, we also search for the publisher on the DOAJ web site. The publisher could not be found.
As a final check, we also searched for a few article titles that the publisher had published. None that we searched for could be found on the DOAJ web site.
Conclusion
This fact check started with an email from a specific journal. The journal claimed that it would index any accepted papers with DOAJ. As the journal is not recognized by DOAJ, this would not be possible.
We extended the investigation to the publisher (JScholar) and neither the publisher, or the journals’ it publishes are indexed by DOAJ.
We can only conclude that JScholar, and the journals it publishes, are using the DOAJ logo in a way that is designed to mislead potential authors, as well readers that visit their web site.
Comments/Suggestions
If you have any comments on this article, for example, you believe that the facts we have reported are incorrect, please let us know through our Twitter account – Direct Message is fine. You can also email us at admin@predatory-publishing.com, but we do not check this email account very regularly so Twitter Direct Message is preferred.
If you have any other suggestions for facts that you would like us to check, then please let us know (using the communication channels mentioned about). We cannot promise to look at every suggestion but we would like to hear from you if you have any suggestions.