On the Net, a scam of a most scholarly kind - The Hindu

Unlike subscription-based journals like, say, Nature, Econometrica or the American Journal of International Law, Open Access (OA) journals are freely accessible online. The business model revolves around the author-pay mode — where researchers pay for publishing their work.

This model has become an academic game-changer in the last decade. With the number of genuine OA titles proliferating by the day, and even reputed publishing houses like the Nature Publishing Group jumping on the bandwagon, keeping track of the new additions has become extremely difficult, particularly by scholars in developing countries. The author-pay mode, the number of titles, and the average developing country researcher’s inexperience in scholarly communication have provided the perfect milieu for electronic ‘dons’ to make a killing.