Awful Advertisement posing as Scientific Paper, Pirates and Publications, System in Turmoil, Users Beware. PLoS One 10(3): 28 November 2016.

Ernest H. Williams, Jr.[1] and Lucy Bunkley-Williams[2], Extraordinary Professors, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, South Africa; 1827 Paseo Los Robles, Mayagüez, PR 00682-7900, ermest.williams1@upr.edu [1] Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico (retired) [2] Department of Biology, UPR (retired)

Niyazov et al. (2016) was a very intriguing and stimulating article, but has a few shortcomings, beyond being just a piece of the pie.

Advertisement, Not Science, and too Obvious on all levels

This was a commercial advertisement for a product for which employees of the product were paid to conduct, write, and submit. PLoS ONE should have never published this farce. This is a horrendously obvious conflict of interest. Can companies just pay for anything to be published? The journal was duped. Shame on you. Further, the premise of Niyazov et al. (2016) was also so obvious, it needed no confirmation. Such common knowledge does not even require citation support, much less a whole “research” article. Sure, something is better than nothing; what a revelation. This was a self-congratulatory commercial advertisement.

Just Completely Wrong

The major point of Niyazov et al. (2016) was Academia.edu has the best discoverability. That is simply not true. Google Scholar Citations has the best (Shanks and Arlitsch, 2016). In terms of active usage, ResearchGate considerably outstrips Academia.edu (Kramer and Bosman, 2016; Matthews, 2016). Niyazov et al. (2016) claimed Academia.edu was 69% better than anything else after 5 years. Niyazov et al. (n.d.) originally claimed 83%, but withdrew that claim after criticism in the Scholarly Kitchen (Davis, 2015). If they cannot defend their results, why should we believe them? “Then, would you believe … ”

Other Systems do not Exist?

Niyazov et al. (2016) only mention Academia.edu. Many other systems exist, some (e.g., Mendeley and ResearchGate) are social networks similar to Academia.edu, but were ignored. This would be expected in a biased advertisement. Matthews (2016) compared all three and Academia.edu did not come out well.

Unavailable Irritation

To their 3 reasons for more citations, we can add a 4th. Even if we could cite something from the abstract of an unavailable article, we prefer citing an equivalent free-access article. We are first just irritated by unavailability, second we find more to cite in whole articles, and third some authors publish poor abstracts (it is an art).

Self-Selection Nonsense

(1) We suspect most researchers will post all their publications, of course, unlike what Niyazov et al. (2016) suggested; (2) researchers would be more likely to post their poorest publications, which need help, not their best, as they suggest, since they would probably already be placed elsewhere; and (3) they would, of course, be more likely to post those references which had not been posted elsewhere, not redundant ones, as suggested. Thus, just the opposite of what Niyazov et al. (2016) suggested appears to us to be correct. They also provide no evidence to support their suggestions.

The Whole System of Scientific Publication is in Turmoil

Some journals allow access only to recent issues, others old issues, many none. Outrageous fees are required for open access in many journals. Researchers are usually permitted to use PDF reprints of their own articles [3]. We understand scientific journals must have support to exist. No method of support, short of mega-benefactors [4], is well received; however, financing open access articles and making them legally available to online systems is a very difficult and unresolved problem not considered in the present paper. Publication on internet has been suggested as a solution, but does not eliminate all costs (Williams and Bunkley-Williams, 1999) [3]. The whole future of academic publication is in confusion (McKenna, 2015).

User Beware, Pirates on the Internet

Personal and real academic open access systems can provide open access for most articles online legally. Commercial systems cannot (Clarke, 2013). All commercial systems appear to often use illegal PDFs online. Commercial systems place the onerous on the researcher asking them to confirm the PDF has been cleared for public use. However, the temptation to list is overpowering to the researcher and the commercial systems never seem to check. Academia.edu[5] and all of these systems are pirates of the internet. Their premise seems to be “We will do whatever can we get away with, profit from, and then blame the lack of permissions on the researchers.” An Academia.edu clause states if the site faces any legal claims arising from things users upload to the site, the user will bear the cost (Fortney and Gonder 2015). They can also take your data for unknown purposes for unknown users (Wagman, 2016). Their site, services, and terms may be changed at any time despite what you agreed to in the past (Academia.edu, 2016).

Is Illegal for Real?

Elsevier has issued thousands of take down notices against Academia.edu (Clarke, 2013; Peterson, 2013). However, they did not make their own competing web site “Mendeley” do the same. Illegal usage is apparently selective. More recently, they have ceased sending these notices. We are aware of no large-scale enforcement (Shanks and Arlitsch, 2016). Universal Green Open Access may already, de facto, have arrived for a lack of interest in enforcement or even desuetude?

Social Network, not Green Open Access Science

Niyazov et al. (2016) preached open access, but Academia.edu is not an open access repository [6] and is not recommended for green open access (Fortney and Gonder, 2015; Suber, 2012), who instead suggest field-specific, university, or general-purpose repositories such as Zenodo. Acamdemia.edu’s name and advertisements (such as the one we are reviewing) confuse researchers. Academia.edu is really a social network for scholars similar to Facebook or Linkedin.

Not “Green” what-so-ever

The largest funder of Academia.edu is fighting the Surfrider Foundation and the California Coastal Commission to prevent public beach access (Fortney and Gonder 2015).

No Preservation of Data

Academia.edu is not a location for long-term preservation of data. A clause states they can close at any time (Fortney and Gonder 2015). They are running on venture capital and have suggested no viable means of survival, much less profit (Academia.edu, 2016; Gultner, 2016; Ruff, 2016). In October 2016, Academia.edu began a “Premium-level Membership” fee of $9.95/month (Gunkel, 2016), but this is unlikely to provide sufficient support.

“Academia.com,” Academia.edu, or Academia Inc. is neither Academic nor University

Academia.edu is not run by a university, but is a commercial company. Technically the “edu” is grandfathered in, but is incorrect and misleading, and would be illegal if newly named. On its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Academia.edu uses the legal name “Academia Inc.” It is often, apparently erroneously, called “Academia.com.”

Conclusions

A commercial advertisement camouflaged as a scientific article is unfortunate. Their use of “.edu” is intentionally confusing and very unfortunate. Google Scholar Citations is better than Academia.edu for discovery, which contradicts the main point of Niyazov et al. (2016) and ResearchGate is much more used. Academia.edu should not be used alone because it is not a Green Open Access Repository. We see no obvious, viable means for Academia.edu to survive in the long term.

Literature Cited

Academia.edu. 2016. About. 6 January, https://www.academia.edu/ about

Clarke, M. 2013. The end of an era for Academia.edu and other academic networks? https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/12/11/has-elsevier-signaled-a-new-era-for-academia-edu-and-other-professional-networks/

Davis, P. 2015. Citation boost or bad data? Academia.edu research under scrutiny. 18 May, http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/05/18/citation- boost-or-bad-data-academia-edu-research-under-scrutiny/

Fortney, K. and J. Gonder. 2015. A social networking site is not an open access repository. Feature. Office of Scholarly Information, University of California, http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2015/12/a-social-networking-site-is-not-an-open-access-repository/

Gultner, G. 2016. Upon leaving Academia.com. Mettalalter, Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Rezeptionsgeschichte, 7 December 2015, updated 19 February 2016, http://mittelalter.hypotheses.org/7123

Gunkel, D. 2016. A curious model for online sites. WNIJ News, 26 October, http://northernpublicradio.org/post/curious-model-online-sites

Kramer, B. and J. Bosman. 2016. Innovations in scholarly communication - global survey on research tool usage [version 1; referees: 2 approved]. F1000Research 5: 692. https://f1000research.com/articles/5-692/v1

McKenna, L. 2015. The convoluted profits of academic publishing. 17 December, http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/12/the-convoluted-profits-of-academic-publishing/421047/

Matthews, D. 2016. Do academic social networks share academic’s interests? Times Higher Education, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/do-academic-social-networks-share-academics-interests

Niyazov Y, Vogel C, Price R, et al. 2016. Open access meets discoverability: citations to articles posted to Academia.edu. PLoS ONE 11(2)

Peterson, A. 2013. How one publisher is stopping academics from sharing their research. The Washington Post 19 December. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/19/how- one-publisher-is-stopping-academics-from-sharing-their-research/

Ruff, C. 2016. Scholars criticize Academia.edu proposal to charge authors for recommendations. Chronicle of Higher Education 29 January. http://www.chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Criticize/235102/

Shanks, J. and K. Arlitsch. 2016. Making sense of researcher services. Journal of Library Administration 56: 295–316. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01930826.2016.1146534?needAccess=true

Suber, P. 2012. Open access. MIT Press, Cambridge. Naturally open access: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262517638_Open_Access_PDF_Version.pdf

Wagman, S. 2016. Some academics remain skeptical of Academic.edu. University Affairs, 12 April, http://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/some-academics-remain-skeptical-of-academia-edu/

Williams, E. H., Jr. and L. Bunkley-Williams. 1999. Comments on "Print vs. the Internet: On the future of the scientific journal": Authors' perspectives. Caribbean Journal of Science Online Forum 1: 2-5. Also on Publons [3].

[3] We will provide PDF copies of any of our 380 scientific publications by e-mail when requested. The present comment is also posted on Publons 28 November 2016. [4] The Caribbean Journal of Science, where EHW is a board member, was Gold Open Access long before the term had been coined. Open access was originally supported by a patron’s book royalties. [5] McKenna (2015) calls Academic.edu a parasite, but suggest all parasites are not harmful. Wrong, if an organism is not harmful, then it is not a parasite. [6] “Green Open Access” means an open access repository where full articles are freely available, properly maintained, and has support for long-term existence.