OmniScriptum

Omniscriptum Publishing Group, formerly known as VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, is a German publishing group headquartered in Riga, Latvia.[1] Founded in 2002 in Düsseldorf,[2] its book production is based on print-to-order technology.

"Scholars' Press" redirects here. For the American publisher, see Society of Biblical Literature.
Omniscriptum Publishing
Available inEnglish, German, Spanish, Russian, French
Founded2002
Headquarters
Riga
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Wolfgang Philipp Müller
Key peopleWolfgang Philipp Müller
CEO
IndustryPublishing
Employees200 (2018)
SubsidiariesPublishing houses:
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, Palmarium Academic Publishing, Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften, Verlag Classic Edition, EUE Editions Universitaires Européennes, Doyen Verlag, Fromm Verlag, Saarbrücker Verlag für Rechtswissenschaften Service industries:
International Book Market Service Ltd.
URLwww.omniscriptum.com

The company publishes theses, research notes, and dissertations through its e-commerce bookstores.[1] Its publishing methods have been questioned for the soliciting of manuscripts from individuals, and for providing authors with the appearance of a peer-reviewed publishing history. OmniScriptum is designated as non-academic by the Norwegian Scientific Index,[3] and its subsidiary Lambert Academic Publishing has been described as a predatory vanity press which does "not apply the basic standards of academic publishing such as peer-review, editorial or proof-reading processes."[4]

The company also offers print-to order publishing for fiction authors. It previously specialized in publishing and selling Wikipedia articles, but has stated that the practice of publishing Wikipedia content ended in 2013.[5]

History

The first publishing house of the group was founded in Düsseldorf in 2002 by Wolfgang Philipp Müller, and transferred to Saarbrücken in August 2005.[2] The Mauritian office was established in April 2007 and was managed from 2008 up until May 2011 by David Benoit Novel,[6][7] followed by Reezwan Ghanty.[8]

In 2007 the group began distributing its publications through Lightning Source,[9] Amazon,[10] and the German company Books on Demand.[11][12]

Products and services

Omniscriptum specializes in German, Russian, Spanish,[13] French, and English dissertations, theses, and research projects.[14][15] Its business model involves a team of acquisitions editors, who search the Internet for academic authors and invite them by unsolicited e-mail for their manuscripts.[16][17][18] Editorial team sends emails to people who have written a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation and whose college library has a web-accessible catalog.[19]

In April 2010 Omniscriptum founded an imprint devoted to religion, spirituality, and Christian theology: Fromm Verlag.[20] In October 2010 Dictus Publishing was launched to publish political texts related to the European Union.[21]

Controversies

Wikipedia content duplication

Various branches of the company, including Alphascript Publishing (created in April 2009),[22] Betascript Publishing (created in January 2010), Fastbook Publishing (created in July 2009),[23] and Doyen Verlag, have published books consisting of compilations of Wikipedia articles.[24] These books have been purchased by some German and Flemish libraries.[25][26]

History of Ghana: a collection of Wikipedia articles published as a book

The titles were published as edited by Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, and John McBrewster who are also listed as authors. As of 21 December 2011 180,818 titles were listed on the OMS bookshop.[27] Betascript lists Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam T. Timpledon, Susan F. Marseken, Mariam T. Tennoe, and Susan F. Henssonow as editors, giving an additional 356,765 titles as of 21 December 2011.[28]

Regarding its publishing strategies, Alphascript asserted that: "There is hardly another platform for quick and better processing of information than Wikipedia" for customers "who want to be informed on a specific subject" in book form, though they can "have online everything free of charge".[29][30][31]

Omniscriptum has edited 22,000 works.[32]

According to the company, the last compilation of Wikipedia articles was published in 2013. The company has stated that it stopped the practice of publishing Wikipedia content in order to focus on "original academic (and) special interest authors."[5]

Business practices

Omniscriptum's business practices have been questioned for profiting by the sale of unacclaimed works and for insufficiently disclosing that content is available elsewhere. In November 2009 an article in the Swiss newspaper Berner Zeitung described Omniscriptum's practices as questionable. The paper faulted Omniscriptum for not disclosing that the books it was publishing were academic dissertations, for publishing works that received a passing grade, and for charging high prices.[33] American writer Victoria Strauss characterized OMS as "an academic author mill",[34][35][36] while Pagan Kennedy notes that OMS's practices are comparable to a form of kudzu weed proliferation in book publishing.[37]

In January 2011 German professor Debora Weber-Wulff, in Copy, Shake, and Paste (a blog about plagiarism and scientific misconduct), referred to OMS as a spam publisher, which has been further confirmed in a blog post at Guide2Research.[38]

See also

References
  1. "Omniscriptum official website". Omniscriptum Publishing.
  2. "VDM Verlag Dr. Müller e.K. Company Profile 2007 version". Archived from the original on 2010-02-21. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
  3. "Publiseringskanaler". Norsk senter for forskningsdata.
  4. "Your Thesis and the Predatory Publisher". Bond University Library. 13 March 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  5. "FAQcriticism – OmniScriptum Publishing". www.omniscriptum.com.
  6. "New managing director for VDM/Mauritius". vdm-publishing.com. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
  7. "David Benoit Novel übernimmt Geschäftsführung von VDM Publishing House". Buchmarkt.de (in German). Meerbusch, Germany: BuchMarkt Verlag K. Werner GmbH. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
  8. "About Us: Directors & Acquisition editors". Bookmarketservice.com. Beau-Bassin, Mauritius: International Book Market Service Ltd. 2011. Archived from the original on 12 May 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
  9. "16.07.2008 VDM zu Besuch bei Lightning Source, UK". vdm-verlag.de. Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing. Archived from the original on 15 October 2007. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
  10. "VDM Verlag erweitert sein Angebot kostenloser Buchveröffentlichungen mit ISBN" (in German). Germany: Offenes-Presseportal.de. 2007-06-08. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
  11. "Verlage: VDM Verlag und Books on Demand kooperieren". Boersenblatt.net (in German). Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
  12. "Pressemitteilungen: Norderstedt, 12 April 2007, VDM und BoD starten Kooperation" (in German). Norderstedt: bod.ch. 12 April 2007. Archived from the original on 27 February 2010. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
  13. "Editorial Académica Española".
  14. "LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing".
  15. "Pourquoi nous?" (in French). Archived from the original on 13 November 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
  16. "Acquisition Editor". mu.3wjobs.com. Hyde, Cheshire: W3 Ltd. Archived from the original on 17 March 2008. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  17. "Melissa Corlett from Mauritius describes her workday at VDM". Forum VDM.
  18. Fabian, Emese (2009). "The fabulous life of an acquisition editor". Forum VDM. VDM Publishing (1/2009): 12–13. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 September 2010.
  19. Morel, Catherine. "Pactualités n°15. Discussions autour des Editions universitaires européennes qui prospectent auprès des doctorants". Pacte.cnrs.fr (in French). Grenoble: CNRS. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
  20. "Willkommen beim Fromm Verlag - Der Fromm Verlag publiziert Bücher aus den Bereichen Religion, Spiritualität, christliche Theologie und Lebenshilfe". Frommverlag.de (in German). Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften (VDM Publishing). Archived from the original on 27 August 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
  21. "Dictus Publishing".
  22. "Neuester Verlag der VDM Gruppe (Alphascript Publishing)". Buchreport.de (in German). Dortmund, Germany: Harenberg Kommunikation Verlags- und Medien-GmbH & Co. KG. 14 April 2009. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
  23. "Academic Brands".
  24. Kai Schlieter. "Schröpfen on demand". Taz.de (in German). Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  25. Nohn, Corinna. "Wikipedia-Kompilationen: "Bullshit, amen, okay"" (in German). Süddeutsche Zeitung. Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
  26. Vankersschaever, Sarah. "Gratis goudmijn in Wikipedia". De Standaard (in Dutch). Brussels. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
  27. "Alphascript Publishing - 180818 Products (1000 most recent titles)". Morebooks.de. Archived from the original on 21 December 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  28. "Betascript Publishing - 356765 Products (1000 most recent titles)".
  29. "Alphascript Publishing: philosophy". Alphascript-publishing.com. Beau-Bassin, Mauritius: VDM Publishing House. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 21 February 2010.
  30. Schmalstieg, Manuel (26 January 2010). "The Wikipedia ecosystem expands (or: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly)". Archived from the original on 31 January 2010. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
  31. "Welcome to Betascript Publishing". Betascript-publishing.com. Beau-Bassin, Mauritius: VDM Publishing House. Archived from the original on 16 March 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
  32. Weber, Stefan. "Blog für wissenschaftliche Redlichkeit - Eine Warnung: Bücher mit kopierten Wikipedia-Artikeln nun auch in Uni-Bibliotheken" [Blog for academic honesty - One caveat: books copied from Wikipedia articles now available in university libraries]. Plagiatsgutachten.de (in German). Archived from the original on 10 October 2010. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
  33. Bernhard, Niklaus; Müller, Philippe. "Wenn die Etikette schwindelt". Berner Zeitung (in German). Bern. Archived from the original on 3 February 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2010. And: "Die grosse Geldmacherei mit Diplomarbeiten". Tagesanzeiger.ch. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
  34. Strauss, Victoria (14 September 2009). "VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller". SFWA. Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
  35. Writer Beware Blog Official Blog of Writer Beware.
  36. Strauss, Victoria (21 October 2009). "Author Mills and a Request for Contact". SFWA. Archived from the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
  37. Kennedy, Pagan. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Authors?". NYTimes.com. Archived from the original on 13 December 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  38. "Avoid OmniScriptum to re-publish your thesis and other scientific papers". guide2research.com. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
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