Offer/Request to allow my photo to be published in an international research group

vintagesnaps · May 29, 2014

I was wondering Lew what the purpose would be for someone to do a site like that since it didn't seem like it would be making money. Maybe those pdf's listed as resources might be articles that people wrote and paid to have included?? It occurred to me too that the person listed as editor may not even know his name is being used.

The more I looked at this the more I saw things that are not what a legit research journal usually would do (there should be citations for any articles used in researching a paper that would give the title of the article, name of the publication, volume number, etc.). And if any of this was published there should be the name of the publishing company as well as the address, etc.

It certainly is possible for someone to make a site look like something it really isn't.

jkzo · May 30, 2014

I would have accepted the offer with photo credit

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

Okay, I took everything everyone said very seriously and found some time at the office to do some digging. And I must say that I haven't found anything

remotely suspicious as of now TBH.I went through his facebook profile, linkedin profile, resume, articles, emails and even found a book he had co-authored.

I would first thank Sharon (the other one

) for making the time to try and find out the truth on my behalf. I really appreciate your efforts

vintagesnaps said:
This isn't necessarily getting published, this is getting a photo on somebody's website. I don't see much advantage to allowing

usage as a photographer, it's going to be seen by lizard lovers I guess!? hobbyists maybe?? and that's about it.

Will there be a contract for usage?? If not how would you manage how the photo would be used?

Well, TBH as long as it's not being used for profit and it's used for research and other educational purposes I don't care whether I'm technically being

"published" or not. Be it a hobby or not, he seems to be pretty passionate about what he's doing.

vintagesnaps said:
To me it seems like a do-it-yourself website, almost like a blog?? I don't see a publisher or any info. about it being connected

to a nonprofit organization. (Guess I'll go read Lew's link, this seems odd to me.) It's not a published journal from what I can tell so I'd think allowing

usage would be questionable- it doesn't look like a scientific research journal to me.

Here's what I found in the guidelines section: "Biawak is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal which publishes original articles and notes which pertain to the biology and captive husbandry of monitor lizards."
I found names of 3 other editors and 7 editorial review staff apart from him, who also checked out as far as I can tell (at least those who I checked). One

of the editors had an email id [email protected], the corresponding website also being about monitor lizards, it had quite a lot of resources including

ebooks on sale. This web site was partly decent and partly fishy, however I couldn't find any participation of Robert in that site. I found the magazines to

be pretty extensive and professionaly designed. I'm not saying that I will share my image yet! But he doesn't look like a fraud so far to me.

vintagesnaps said:
(Did somebody move the Smithsonian to Long Island??)...

you could try contacting the science center at Tanglewood on Long Island and see if he's actually on staff there. Center For

Science Teaching and Learning | 1 Tanglewood Rd, Rockville Centre, NY 11570 | 516-764-0045 - it's also listed on Nassau County's website.
I suspect the site you heard from is fake.

I didn't write to them as the email id mentioned was of a helpdesk,I wonder if they would respond to a random query about their employee? I did find this long island museum which mentioned that "the museum joined a small group of institutions nationwide as a Smithsonian Affiliate." That could be an explaination. I also found this positive comment on the cstl website mentioning Robert's name. Although it can be any other Robert as well.

vintagesnaps said:
Maybe those pdf's listed as resources might be articles that people wrote and paid to have included??

Now this is the part that has me worried. If this is the case, I'd run as far away from him as possible. But I wouldn't want to blame an innocent person as well.

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

Thanks everyone for your comments, I'm leaning towards sharing the pic. However, I found another photographer whose picture was published in another edition of the journal and contacted him for some information. I'll let you guys know if he responds.

TheNevadanStig said:
Yep, if it is indeed an educational publication in which they aren't making a profit in using, then why not, specially with full credit? Then you can say you're published! Now if this was going into a book or something that would be FOR SALE with a profit potential for the publisher, it would be a completely different story. Not bashing you at all Raj I love your work, but it's not like this is your best photo or it's something that has the potential of making a large sum over. At most you might make a few bucks selling it as a microstock. Plus if you are retaining rights, you can still do whatever you feel like with it in the future.

I agree with you a 100% Jason, and I am not really looking for any money for this image as well. Hell, even if it were my best pic I might have shared it anyway

slackercruster said:
OP, what is wrong with you? If buyers are lining up, sell it. Don't give it away unless you don't need $.

I was being sarcastic, it seems I need to work on it

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

The_Traveler said:
There is, unfortunately, a huge number of predatory, open access journals.
They will publish any kind of scientific paper, without peer review, as long as they get paid.
That journal is not on the list but the field is exploding. LIST OF PUBLISHERS | Scholarly Open Access
You might want to query the author at the link above and see how to evaluate whether you want to support that Journal.

I did exactly that and waiting on the response of the author, although it seems he's traveling for a few days. The funniest thing is, thanks to your link, I just realized that I'm already a part of this scam. One of my professors used a modified data encryption algorithm program I developed in college as part of his research paper for his Doctorate, the paper was published under the Global Journals Inc., and guess what, it's there on the list! :shock:

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

Okay, Mr. Jeffrey Beal did respond to my email, I'll quote:

Jeffrey Beal said:
Hi Raj,

No, I've not heard of this organization -- which is a good thing in this case.

My initial impression is positive, and if this were a bogus organization, i probably would have heard about it.

Regards,
Jeffrey

Further I found this website which kept a track of their publishing details and ISSN numbers Biawak | ROAD, seems legit to me.
I've sent a few emails to a couple of authors who wrote in that magazine asking whether they paid to be published, if they say no then I'll go ahead and share it and also offer the other two for future use if they need it

The_Traveler · May 30, 2014

Raj,

Glad this seems to be a bona fide place and congratulations on the published picture.

This predatory journal business has erupted, fueled by the tens of thousands of grad students and researchers trying to place papers. A 'publisher' will create an entire series of fake journals, often with look-alike names to reputable journals. The editorial boards are either total fakes or relative non-entities who are glad to share their names in return for a line on their cv.

There is no peer review, the only work is the correspondence and collection of page fees. Once the server and programming is paid for, the only expenses are for support persons.

I feel sort of sorry for the researchers who are caught between the need to publish and the bottleneck of high impact journals. Even when I was publishing, it was a difficult situation. Now, as the number of researchers have increased exponentially and technology has advanced, it is just damn difficult to find topics that are interesting and actually do-able with available resources.

My thesis was in micro-rheology (the fluid characteristics of small volumes of fast setting liquids cements). We had to fabricate test chambers, chart readings from paper graphs - each run took 30 minutes + setup. I did about 1500 runs, that took me an entire year.
Now there are dedicated rheometers for tiny samples, digital collection and disposable test chambers. I could have done all the work in a week.
Finding a decent research topic for a thesis is damned difficult and, if a researcher can pay to get it published, to many it seems like a fair deal.

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

The_Traveler said:
Raj,

Glad this seems to be a bona fide place and congratulations on the published picture.

This predatory journal business has erupted, fueled by the tens of thousands of grad students and researchers trying to place papers. A 'publisher' will create an entire series of fake journals, often with look-alike names to reputable journals. The editorial boards are either total fakes or relative non-entities who are glad to share their names in return for a line on their cv.

Thank you so much Lew.

Luckily enough for me, the entire payment was done by my professor as it was purely in his interests. I did get a nice CV for my first job 3 years back nevertheless.

I tried to understand what micro-rheology was all about, but it all started to go tangent pretty quick and I gave up after a while. :lol:

Talking about predatory business, I was going through some of the past year journals of Biawak and stumbled upon this strange info. Apparently, Ugandans are injecting themselves with monitor lizard's blood to treat AIDS. These are selling @ 175$ per injection.

Steve5D · May 30, 2014

I guess I view this thing a bit differently than most.

First, I have a difficult time believing that there are too many people running online scams regarding the research of Varanus flavescens. I know, call me crazy. Whether people pay to get "published" on that site is of no consequence to you. Did they ask you to pay to get your photo on the page? No. It doesn't matter what they've asked of anyone else.

Second, the guy says that these are rarely photographed. I don't know exactly how to quantify that but someone, who probably knows more about Varanus flavescens than anyone here, was surprised that you got such a good picture of them.

Letting them use the photo doesn't preclude you from ever selling it.

I'd let 'em use it...

The_Traveler · May 30, 2014

Steve5D said:
I guess I view this thing a bit differently than most.

First, I have a difficult time believing that there are too many people running online scams regarding the research of Varanus flavescens. I know, call me crazy.

Actually, you aren't different than most people on this thread; the rest of us encouraged him to be sure who he was dealing with.

The main issues about dealing with predatory publishers is whether Raj wanted his name to be associated with this kind of publication and whether, according to the usually unread terms of submission, by submitting a picture for publication, he automatically incurred page fees.

We all think he should let it be published but after he gets agreement on usage and that there are no costs to him.

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

It's final, I've clearly told him that he needs my permission to post it anywhere other than the Journal and also followed paigew's suggestion and asked him to include the URL to my facebook page. I didn't give my website as I don't feel it's anywhere close to ready yet, and also that the domain name may change sometime in the future.

Thanks again guys for all your helps and opinions.

vintagesnaps · May 30, 2014

I would have looked up some of the people listed on the site. I would not contact them thru the IVIG website, I would want to verify that the people listed are actually involved with this website.

Being in the US I would for example contact the professor listed at Temple thru his university email address and confirm that he is on the IVIG editorial board. I would call the science center at the Tanglewood nature preserve and ask to speak to Robert who sent the email, to follow up on the email and make sure he does work there and is on the board for the IVIG. Not being in the US for you I don't know what your best options would be.

There is no publisher given. I cannot find the journal online anywhere except on their own site (apparently as pdf's under resources that I'd mentioned earlier), other than being mentioned on a couple of message boards. This does not appear to be a published journal.

I cannot find any info. that this is a registered nonprofit organization. It could be a legit 'interest group' I suppose, whatever that may be.

Raj_55555 · May 30, 2014

vintagesnaps said:
I would have looked up some of the people listed on the site. I would not contact them thru the IVIG website, I would want to verify that the people listed are actually involved with this website.

Being in the US I would for example contact the professor listed at Temple thru his university email address and confirm that he is on the IVIG editorial board. I would call the science center at the Tanglewood nature preserve and ask to speak to Robert who sent the email, to follow up on the email and make sure he does work there and is on the board for the IVIG. Not being in the US for you I don't know what your best options would be.

There is no publisher given. I cannot find the journal online anywhere except on their own site (apparently as pdf's under resources that I'd mentioned earlier), other than being mentioned on a couple of message boards. This does not appear to be a published journal.

I cannot find any info. that this is a registered nonprofit organization. It could be a legit 'interest group' I suppose, whatever that may be.

Well, I don't really mind as long as they are working towards something positive and not using the authors to be paid. That was one point you raised that had me worried.
One of the authors, Hemant Kirkire (in Indian), wrote in a past issue of the journal. I reached out to him and confirmed that they didn't pay any money to have their work "published" in the journal. I double checked his Facebook profile to ensure he doesn't have any relation with Robert. TBH, as long as it's for the cause of animal conservation I would love to be a part of it.