Scholarly Open Access
Critical Analysis of Jeffrey Beall's Blog - Open Access Publishing

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Background
Ontario International Development Agency (Agency) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization registered in Ontario, Canada. The Agency has been in operation for over a decade in Ontario and has successfully delivered over 731 projects across the world as of July 27, 2014. Canada’s non-profit sector is a highly regulated industry and Agency comply with all regulatory requirements and maintain outstanding merit. 

Failed Extortion Attempt
The Agency received a “poorly-written” anonymous letter from Denver, Colorado, USA dated June 12, 2014. The letter demands one million U.S. dollars. The letter also iterates that if the Agency failed to pay the one million U.S. dollar sum, the Agency and IJSD Journal would be blacklisted. The Agency ignored the demand.

On July 10, 2014 OIDA received a telephone call from Denver, Colorado, USA from a caller demanding one million U.S. dollars along with a threat to blacklist the Agency and IJSD Journal.  The Agency did not discuss details with the caller and disconnected the call.  The Agency confirmed that caller was a Jeffrey Beall. 

On July 15, 2014 the article that appeared on the http://scholarlyoa.com website made numerous allegations against the Agency and IJSD Journal. These allegations were written by the so-called, self-proclaimed journal critic Mr. Jeffrey Beall. OIDA denied all allegations. OIDA also strongly believed that there was a strong link between the extortion attempt and Mr. Beall’s “poorly-written statement.”

Agency Position
The OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development is a forum presenting high-quality research in both social and applied science to a broad audience of communities working in international development. The articles will appeal to social and applied scientists (both inside and outside academia) as well as to non-specialists.

The OIDA IJSD Journal’s editorial board clearly posted on the website and Journal has no practice, “pay more publish more”. The Agency has established a “partner in publishing” with Social Science Research Network (SSRN). There are over 2000 institutes partnered with SSRN that even publish their work. IJSD journal has been publishing its articles on SSRN since 2010. The Agency’s objective is to provide rapid, worldwide distribution of research to authors and their readers and to facilitate communication among them at the lowest possible cost.

Mr. Beall’s “Open access Google detective” work found that the agency was located in a residential area. The Agency's operation centre however, is instead located in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada and provides a 3200 square feet facility for its operation. In order to be cost-effective in the Agency’s operation, our staff accommodation and operation centre were integrated. OIDA operation center is equipped with modern technology and are capable of handling our overseas operations.

The Agency is more than welcoming and issues an open invitation to Mr. Beall to visit the headquarters. The Agency hopes that Mr. Beall accepts our invitation. Note: As of July 27, 2014 Mr. Beall never contact our agency. 

The IJSD Journal requests publication rights from authors in order to mitigate legal issues and comply with Canadian privacy laws and plagiarism claims.  But IJSD Journal does not request exclusive copyright transfer for publications. If any legal issues arise, OIDA takes responsibility of its publications on IJSD Journal. Therefore IJSD Journal publishes under Ontario International Development Agency and ©Authours et al. .

In order to publish online, creative common licenses are not required. This is Mr. Beall’s own opinion but it is unsustainable in Canadian law and international publication standards.

The Quality of publications depends on quality of research, but not on the authors from India or elsewhere. Researchers from over 80 countries including Canadian researchers publish their work on IJSD Journal. (As of February 17, 2015, IJSD journal delivered over 71,000 downloads free of charge. updated on February 17, 2015) Whether or not the Agency makes a profit has no relation what-so-ever to the quality of publications.

Mr. Beall’s major concern is based on profits and this hints at a reasonable connection to the extortion attempt.

Conclusion
The Agency examined Mr. Jeffrey Beall’s “poorly-written statement” closer. Beall's blog is ridiculous, baseless, disrespectful, and is ridden with factual unprofessionalism and arrogance. Mr. Jeffrey Beall criticizes a wide range of journals from social sciences to medical sciences. This “jack of all trades” and self-proclaimed journal critic is an “open-access bully” and nothing more.

Elisa MacMillan
Communication and Corporate Strategies
Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA). 

Released on July 27, 2014 at 6:00 PM EDT

Posted by Friends of Open Access