No experience with MRA but my personal favorite criterion for sussing out a journal's ethics and overall behavior is their statement about indexing/abstracting. MRA sez:

"The Medical Research Archives indexes in Crossref and Google Scholar."

Crossref is no kind of quality filter; all you have to do to be "indexed by" Crossref is purchase a DOI.

Google Scholar ditto with no purchase required. My recent study of "predatory" content in databases and repositories, presented at MLA 2018, found that 62% of the articles published in health sciences-specific journals present on Beall's List were found in Google Scholar. This does not mean that Google Scholar does not have any quality material. It just means that a close look at the journal and publisher is required.

Gwen, regarding your general policy -- simply charging fees does not say anything about the quality of the OA journal or publisher. The journal that bobbles between #1 and #2 in biomedical informatics, which has been covered by Journal Citation Reports for some years, peer-reviewed and open access from the beginning but originally free, charges me $2500 to publish and $90 just to submit a ms. for consideration. Many conversations with my academic collaborators begin: "How are we going to pay for this?:

And have you looked at Biomed Central lately?

https://www.biomedcentral.com/getpublished/article-processing-charges/biomedcentral-prices

Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool
Discovery Fellow, Virtual Environments Group
Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Form is never more than an extension of content.” [Charles Olson quoting Robert Creely; Projective Verse, 1950].


-----Original Message-----
From: Medical Libraries Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Sprague, Gwen E
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2018 10:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MEDLIB-L] the journal Medical Research Archives

A couple of my faculty have been approached but this journal wanting to publish a project of theirs. Does anyone have any experience with them or their publisher, KEI Journals?

Medical Research Archives  https://journals.ke-i.org/index.php/mra/author-guideline

My general policy is to not recommend any journal that is charging you fees to publish. 

Gwen

If I can be of further assistance please ask.



GWEN E SPRAGUE, MLS
Clinical Medical Librarian, Medical-Dental Library
TMC Lakewood
(816) 404-8265 | [log in to unmask]









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