Open access articles are meant to be shared, of course, but according to a story published this week in The Scientist, a pair of journals have taken this idea a bit too far.
The journals Science Reuters, which is not affiliated with the Reuters news organization, and Insight Biomedical Science have plagiarized papers originally published in journals including PLOS One and the African Journal of Biochemistry Research, reports Kerry Grens.
Contacted by Grens for comment, a support liaison at Insight Knowledge, publisher of Insight Biomedical Research, says that the publisher "reproduced mentioned articles in the journal just to circulate it around the world. Because these papers are published on the basis of Open Access."
PLOS, however, isn't exactly thrilled with Insight's circulating of its papers and has contacted the company to express its displeasure, Grens writes.
She notes as well that a number of the researchers whose work was plagiarized had no idea of the two journals' existence. More than that, several members of the journals' editorial boards weren't aware of their existence either.
"Thank you for alerting me to the fact that a journal I was not aware of has my name on their website as a member of the editorial board,” said Rosemary Bass, senior lecturer at Northumbria University, upon being notified by The Scientist of her apparent position with Insight Biomedical Science. "I will be instructing them to remove my name."