<p class="MsoNormal">Dear Colleagues,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal">I wanted to bring to the attention of the IS community
something that happened last week which has us totally baffled.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">On March 10, 2012, I received
a message from a faculty member in South East European University which
informed us about a double <span class="il">publication of the same article</span>.
He was absolutely right. We checked and found that the article
"Contextual Constraints in Media Choice: Beyond Information Richness” that
we (Palvia, P., Pinjani, P., Cannoy, S.D., and Jacks, T) <span class="il">published</span>
in Decision Support <span style> </span>Systems (Vol. 51,
2011, pp. 657–670) was also <span class="il">published</span> in the
International Research Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences (Vol 3, Issue 11,
Nov 2011). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">We were appalled by this
<span class="il">dual</span> <span class="il">publication</span> as we had submitted
our article only to DSS and never to the International Research Journal of
Basic and Applied Sciences or any other journal for that matter. <span style></span>So we contacted the editors of DSS.<span style> </span>The Managing Editor of DSS told us that she
had no knowledge of it and referred us to their Publisher, Elsevier.<span style> </span><span style> </span>Elsevier
came back and told us the following:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">“As for the other
journal, International Research Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, this is
not an Elsevier journal so we can rule out the possibility of your paper being
submitted to that journal by someone from Elsevier. We would suggest that you
contact the Editorial Office of the said journal and clarify with them this
matter. They can confirm who submitted your paper to their journal.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">At this point, I went to
the publisher (The USA Science Record) web site of the International Research
Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences <a href="http://www.journals.sciencerecord.com/" target="_blank">http://www.journals.sciencerecord.com/</a>
and found that they have several journals including this one in question.<span style> </span><span style> </span>For
this journal, they have many names on the editorial board but no name for an
editor-in-chief.<span style> </span>On March 16, I wrote to
their general email address asking them about this dual publication and the
name of the editor-in-chief.<span style> </span>I have not
received any response from them.<span style> </span>In
order to investigate further, I also wrote to three names on the editorial
board but have not received any response.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">At this point, we have
reached the end of the rope and don’t know what to do next.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none">I write to the AIWorld
list for several reasons:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.25in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span style><span style>1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>My
co-authors and I have no knowledge of the second publication and completely
dissociate ourselves from this second publication.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.25in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span style><span style>2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Does
anyone have a logical explanation for this dual publication?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.25in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span style><span style>3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Has
it happened to others?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.25in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span style><span style>4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>If
there is no logical explanation, then obviously it violates ethics and perhaps
even some laws.<span style> </span>What can be done to stop
this practice?<span style> </span>Should AIS get involved?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.25in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"><span style><span style>5.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>What
should we do now?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:normal;text-autospace:none"> </p>Prashant Palvia, Ph.D., Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor<br>The University of North Carolina at Greensboro <br>
Bryan School of Business and Economics<br>424 Bryan Building, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA<br><br><br><br>
<br>