Comment on a paper in predatory Journal of Austin Publishers

Queries/ corrections /comments

by

V. Irudayaraj

Department of Botany, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous),

Palayamkottai, India – 627 002

On the published paper in the predatory Journal

 Comment on a paper in predatory Journal of Austin Publishers

CONCLUSION:

·       Ultimately the aim/gain is nothing other than to get the fund by the investigator(s) and to keep the unscientific / unpractical reports, published in predatory journals, by the sponsoring agent. (Note: Austin Publishers – Austin Journals are under the list of predatory Journals).

·       How can a tissue culturist, without knowing the basic categories of IUCN and without knowing the reproductive biology of the target species will effectively conserve the threatened plant?

Scientific plagiarism

Plagiarism Austin Publishers

Recently I have come across a paper in Austin J. Biotech. & Bioengineering entitled ' A molecular approach for the identification selective species of Asplenium from Nilgiris: South India' with the plagiarized data in Table 1 containing altitude range, distribution pattern and chromosome number which have been plagiarized from the book "Pteridophyte Flora of Nilgiris, South India" by Manickam & Irudayaraj, 2003 (Bishen Singh & Mahendra Pal Singh, DehraDun).

 I requested the publishers to put at least a corrigendum. But the publishers unethically removed the plagiarised version and uploaded the corrected ones. By further communication, I requested the publisher to retract the paper in a proper way. But jokingly, without any notice the paper has been removed completely from online.

When I browse the same article on 8th September 2016 I could download neither the plagiarized version nor the corrected version. It had been published online first and it was accessible easily at the beginning. How can you describe such activity ? If a paper is retracted it should be properly announced/published in the same journal with reasons. Thus the Austin Journal prove itself as predatory journal.

I communicated the problem to some members of the editorial board of the sane Journal and I never received any reply.  

The publishers themselves have accepted it. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByB72rJwLrQaU0V5blZleXZuVkk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByB72rJwLrQaNE5XNkhSRFFhUzA/view?usp=sharing