MedCrave Exposed (2017)

postED to Facebook ON August 29, 2017

Hi All, 

On the topic of predatory journals, I recently decided to put the MedCrave Group to the test. The MedCrave Group runs about 130 online journals, mostly in the medical profession. Back in May, many astronomers received a mass email from them, soliciting articles in the area of "astrology". 

I decided to oblige, with a completely farcical, and not-at-all subtle submission...which they recently accepted to their "Physics and Astronomy International Journal", and immediately published on their website (since taken down, but here's a copy).

Read it, and see if you can catch all of the pop culture references and gross scientific errors ;)

Anyway, then they started asking me for $668. Instead of ignoring them, I decided to take them head on and wrote them a rejection letter...from author to journal! 

And in it I included an *extensive* review of my own own article, so they would have a template for conducting peer review in the future.

I post these for everyone's enjoyment, but also in the hopes of discrediting what is clearly a pay-to-play enterprise. Please forward along to anyone and everyone!

Also, it occurs to me that this could double as a good (and fun) exercise for students, in practicing peer review. 

Cheers!
Dr. Daniel E. Reichart
Director of the Skynet Robotic Telescope Network
Director of PROMPT and Morehead Observatory
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill