Predatory Publisher - Check Before You Publish

Many people talks about 'publish or perish' in the higher education industry now. Meaning, if an academician want to build his or her career in this field, one must conduct research and publish the paper in journals. Publication is also one of the criteria for promotion for academia.

I have to agree that it is important to publish a research work if it served the purpose of sharing the intellectual knowledge of new findings/conclusions that contribute to shape our society. This is why www.businessdictionary.com defined research as:

"Systematic investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by discovering new facts. It is divided into two general categories: (1) Basic research is inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge, and (2) Applied research is effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or developing new processes, products, or techniques."

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/research.html#ixzz49jswWhCD

However, I am so surprised to learn that there are so many blacklisted publishers and journals out there. Some of these journals have so many papers published by academicians from various institutions. These blacklisted publishers not recognized due to potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers, misleading metrics and hijacked journals.

The Beall's list of predatory open access publishers 2016 provides a summary of the number of predatory publishers and journals.
https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2016/

For the list of predatory publishers and journals, you can access to these:
https://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/
https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
and
http://blog.scopus.com/posts/titles-indexed-in-scopus-check-before-you-publish

Even our Malaysia Ministry of Education (MOE) has a list of blacklisted journals compiled in May 2015 which you can download with this link: http://epsas.upm.edu.my/psasrip/images/pdf2015/publishers.pdf
Don't publish for the sake of publication or for promotion. There is no easy way to publish but to go through good publishers and high ranking journals like from Scopus or Web of Science . So, check on the publisher and journal credibility before you cite or submit for publication.

Are you happy with the Customer Service?

What is Customer Service?

I was downtown last week, walking around Bukit Bintang and doing some shopping in Pavilion KL and KLCC. I was shocked to experience our own very own customer service in some of the shops. Not a very pleasant experience but there are also some good ones.

The customer service in some of the retail shops was very poor. The promoters hardly welcome any customers. Sometimes they do greet the customers but were very mechanical. If you are lucky, they will notice you walking in or seeking help. Some, choose to ignore the customers.

So what are they doing in the shop?

The smartphone is their best companion at work now. They choose to concentrate on whatever they are doing with their phone rather than serving the customers. They don't even look happy when I asked them about their products, showing me the look as I have interrupted them. I just wonder who is the customer?!

Another incident I had when I approach a promoter at one of the China-based smartphone brands in KLCC. He advised me to go to their website to find out more about the specification of the model I inquire for. I think this is one of the reasons why many prefer to buy online as they don't have to feel disappointed with the services at the retail shop.

If employers are serious about their business and are customer-oriented, it is time to re-examine your customer service, especially at the storefront. Something simple can change the entire service culture of the business. Watch this: What Steve Jobs Learned From The Ritz-Carlton by Forbes