validated by rigorous peer review with the author’s benefit

The other day my co-authors and I received an email addressed to Dear Prof. Hugo Mariva (sic), offering to publish our importance Markov chain paper in the Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics which is very much likely a predatory journal, given the approximate English of the email, the journal acceptance window, its editorial board, and its publisher, which is associated with a myriad of journals in all fields and with amphed citation factors. (Plus the ultimate faux-pas of writing statistics with no upper case!) What I find fascinatingly scary or scarily fascinating is that we are in the final throes of submitting the paper to a respectable journal..!

We are glad to have established ourselves as a ruling Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics. Aside from conceptual and theoretical, the journal encourages the use of mathematics in various other scientific fields, such as Algebra, Analysis, approximation theory, Geometry, statistics, Mathematical Biology, Topology, Number Theory, etc.

We reviewed your research profile and enjoyed your article entitled ” The Importance Markov Chain ” and their research by providing rapid publications within 30-40 days, validated by rigorous peer review with the author’s benefit.

a message from the Editor of Statistics & Computing

[This is a message from Ajay Jasra, new Editor in Chief of Statistics & Computing, regarding submissions (and another stone in Springer’s garden).]

Subject: New Submissions at Statistics and Computing

Dear Prospective Authors,

As you may be aware Springer has introduced a new system for the management of article submissions. Despite my best efforts, there are several missing functionalities which make efficient management of article submissions virtually impossible. We do expect the system to be fixed by the new year, but that does not help us in the short-term.

I would please request all new submissions, until further notice, to be made on the old editorial manager:

https://www.editorialmanager.com/stco/default1.aspx

so that we can properly handle your manuscript.

Kind Regards,

Ajay Jasra
EIC Statistics & Computing

COMPUTO, the journal for reproducible statistical research

Computo (latin for calculate, compute, reckon) is a new journal launched by the French statistical society (SFDS) to promote reproducible research in statistics and machine learning by publishing papers with reproducible contributions. Towards this goal, Computo goes beyond classical static publications by including technical advances in literate programming and scientific reporting. The reproducibility of numerical results is a necessary condition for publication in Computo. In particular, submissions must include all necessary data (e.g. via zenodo repositories) and code. For contributions featuring the implementation of methods/algorithms, the quality of the provided code is assessed during the review process. Meaning accepting contributions in the form of notebooks (e.g. Rmarkdown, or Jupyter). This is a 100% free and open-access journal, thanks to the sponsoring of the SFDS. Once a manuscript is accepted, its reviews will be made available on the Computo website. Reviewers can choose to remain anonymous or not. (Towards an even broader reach, we are now considering a partnership with the PCI, following an earlier attempt I did not pursue till its completion…) Computo’s logo has been designed by Loïc Schwaller. And represents the letters of Computo in bytes. Submissions are now open!

the Peer Community journal [not the PCI journal!]

After a debate within the PCI (Peer Community in) communities as to whether or not create a Peer Community Journal, the decision was made to launch it and it is now ready. A really great initiative that I support (albeit from a fringe field when considering the range of the PCIs) and which can only succeed (to bypass traditional journals) if submissions happen. (There already exists a PCI Journal, specialising in research on precast, prestressed concrete. Not to be confused with!) To quote from the journal webpage,

Once an article has been recommended by a PCI, the authors can opt to leave it on a preprint server, to publish it in Peer Community Journal, to submit it to a PCI-friendly journal or to any other journal.

Peer Community Journal is run by researchers for researchers and is funded by public research institutions. It is:

• Unique = it is a single journal for all PCIs, and a generalist journal (Ecology, Evolutionary biology, Genomics, Archaeology, Paleontology, Network Science, Zoology, Infection, etc. )
• Free = it is a diamond open-access journal (free for both authors and readers), financed by public research institutions and Plan S compatible.
• Exclusive = it publishes only articles recommended by PCI
• Unconditional = it can publish any PCI-recommended article in its recommended version
• Opt-in = it publishes articles only if the authors wish it
• Immediate = after recommendation by a PCI, no delay between transfer to the journal and publication
• Community-based, with more than 1500 recommenders playing the role of Editors

This journal, created and funded by the PCI organization, accepts PCI-recommended articles without further peer reviews.

can you spare a dime? [or rather 113,900?]

Just read the announcement in Nature of 24 November that

Publisher Springer Nature has announced how scientists can make their papers in its most selective titles free to read as soon as they are published.

which is presented as a great advance to make scientific papers available for all to read. The catch is that there is no free lunch, obviously, as the author(s) have to pay Springer a 1,514,324.68 krónur charge for immediate open access! The Nature article does mention the issue obviously, as this is such a huge amount of money that it makes publishing under such conditions inaccessible for all academics but those with sufficient funding grants. It also mentions an alternate scheme contemplated by some Nature outlets to introduce “a non-refundable fee of €2,190 to cover an editorial assessment and the peer-review process.” None of the fee going to reviewers, apparently. This “evolution” (?!) is driven by the EU Plan S for making scientific publications available to all, but it even more crucially calls for a radical reassessment of publishing policies for research that is publicly funded and publicly reviewed, then paid again by publicly funded libraries and institutions. Even more radical than India’s push for `One nation, one subscription’.