Some of you may have noticed the blog post by Jeffrey Beall
who is campaigning (http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514)
against Open Access and as such also against SCIRP as one of the largest Open
Access journal publishers: http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/10/02/an-editorial-board-mass-resignation-from-an-open-access-journal .
SCIRP has always made public, changes on Editorial Boards with
resignations and additions. The Editorial Board is listed in all of its
journals in the front matter. So there has never been a secret
about Beall's "story" and never will in similar cases in the
future.
Old board (18 EB members) as given on the February 2013 issue of
Advances in Anthropology (AA): http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?issueID=2677&issueType=content
New board (6 remaining EB members) as given on the May 2013 issue
of Advances in Anthropology (AA): http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperDownload.aspx?issueID=2938&issueType=content
Beall reports about an event 1.5 years old, apparently
lacking anything else to report about SCIRP.
The "story" in short by Prof. Anatole Alex Klyosov, former Editorial
Board (EB) member, Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of Advances in Anthropology (AA) since
June 1, 2013:
"The former Editor-in-Chief could not get along with the AA
staff, and agitated the Board. Since the Board had no interest in the Journal
and not published anything themselves, they took the opportunity to
leave."
The "story" with some more details by SCIRP:
Prof. Fatimah Jackson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimah_Jackson)
was the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of Advances in Anthropology (AA). She was unhappy
with the situation at her journal and wrote a letter demanding changes in 8
points within 48 hours or she and parts of the board would resign. SCIRP
responded at length and in time but could not fulfill all points demanded. The
major controversy was about finances. Prof. Jackson wanted to get full control
of AA's finances "4. ...Determination of the publication fee should be an
academic decision." "5. The Editor-in-Chief should be appraised each
year of the financial status of the journal and the justifications for the fees
collected." She wanted to decide of several papers to be published for
free. She also indicated that she wanted to be financially compensated for her
work at SCIRP as EiC. As SCIRP felt it to be impossible to comply with all
requests, 11 more members of the Editorial Board (EB) whom Prof. Jackson had
influenced resigned together with her. SCIRP deeply regrets this, but accepts
to be unable to fully prevent such things to happen probably also in the
future, with more than 5000 members on its EBs. SCIRP maintains a good
relationship with its EB members and has a continuous process for quality
improvement. Lessons learned from the other valid points in Prof. Jackson's
list of demands were taken up shortly after the event.